IT Executive news

• For a price, Microsoft will extend support for Windows Server, SQL Server 6 more years

  08-12-2016 23:19
  
  Microsoft today added a new licensing option for Windows Server and SQL Server that extends support by six years, for a total of 16 years of vulnerability patches.
  Called "Premium Assurance," the six-year support addendum will be available for Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008, and later. Enterprises may first purchase a support extension in early 2017, Microsoft said today in a post to a company blog by a pair of Microsoft executives.
  "[Premium Assurance] helps you continue to meet compl
  
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• BlackBerry unveils BlackBerry Secure for enterprise IoT mobile security

  08-12-2016 23:12
  
  BlackBerry on Thursday unveiled a comprehensive mobile-security platform for a wide variety of Internet of Things devices connected to enterprises.
  Called BlackBerry Secure, the mobile security software and related services will combine key technologies from recent BlackBerry acquisitions including Good Technology, WatchDox, AtHoc and Encription. The company detailed its efforts in a blog post.
  BlackBerry emphasized that the new approach will simplify management and security for smartphones, ta
  
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• The IoT: Gateway for enterprise hackers

  08-12-2016 22:27
  
  A very merry Christmas could give way to a not-so-happy New Year security hangover for enterprises, once a few million more Internet of Things (IoT) devices are unwrapped and migrate from homes into the workplace.
  So, a webinar this week hosted by The Security Ledger titled: “Who Let the IoT in?: Finding and securing wireless devices in your environment,” was designed to offer some advance advice on how to cope with it.
  Paul Roberts, founder and editor in chief of The Security Ledge
  
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• Cortana for iOS, Android now features quick access to common actions

  08-12-2016 21:23
  
  Microsoft's Cortana virtual assistant is getting a facelift on iOS and Android aimed at making it more useful for users, and also bringing a bit of brightness to what's currently a rather dour interface. The app's biggest change is the launch of a button that lets users quickly choose between a suite of common actions, like viewing their calendar at a glance, checking reminders, or getting a weather forecast. The app itself looks friendlier, with a purple gradient background replacing a sta
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Red Hat brings OpenShift to Google Cloud Platform

  08-12-2016 21:10
  
  Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated is already available on AWS, and its arrival on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) leaves only one major cloud infrastructure providerout: Microsoft Azure. And I am certain Azure will be supported sooner or later.
  With OpenShift Dedicated, Red Hat manages administrative and operational management tasks for customers, freeing them to focus on the development and deployment of their own applications.
  According to Red Hat, OpenShift Dedicated on Google Cloud Platform includes:S
  
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• Russian cyberspies likely behind DNC breach move on to German election

  08-12-2016 20:35
  
  A group of suspected Russian cyberspies blamed for interfering in the U.S. election is also attempting to influence the upcoming vote in Germany, according to the country's domestic intelligence agency.The Russian hacking group known as Fancy Bear or APT 28 has been targeting political parties in the country, Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) intelligence agency said in a statement Thursday posted online by Politico.The hacking activities have led to a su
  
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• Apple names its picks for best apps of the year

  08-12-2016 20:30
  
  The best of the bestOn Tuesday, the App Store editors announced 2016’s best apps and games for iOS devices, alongside popular music, TV, and movie picks from Apple Music and the iTunes Store. Looks like 2016 was quite the year for Apple entertainment. Did your favorite apps and games make the list? Here’s the full rundown.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Microsoft's vision for LinkedIn is about tying its business data into Office and other services

  08-12-2016 20:25
  
  Now that Microsoft’s massive $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn has officially closed, it’s time for the next step: figuring out how its massive store of business information can best be used by Microsoft and its customers. 
  Building upon the company’s integration plan outlined earlier this year, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella laid out a set of plans for short-term integration with LinkedIn (in a blog post on LinkedIn, natch), with adv
  
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• IEEE-USA wants Trump to end H-1B lottery

  08-12-2016 20:16
  
  The IEEE-USA intends to urge President-elect Donald Trump to quickly replace the random H-1B lottery with a system that gives priority to companies that pay the best wages.
  This proposal would also move large H-1B users to the back of the visa distribution line. For this to happen, all it would take is an executive order by the president, the engineering group says.
  Separately, the IEEE-USA also wants Trump to prod the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate what it claims is discrimination a
  
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• New Audis can now talk to traffic lights

  08-12-2016 20:06
  
  Audi has announced that select 2017 Audi A4, Q7 and allroad models (built after June 2016) will be able to communicate with Wi-Fi-enabled traffic lights that can inform drivers when red lights will turn green.
  Traffic Light Information, an Audi connect PRIME feature, was first announced in August; the automaker demonstrated the technology at a Las Vegas launch event this week.
  Audi's "time-to-green" traffic light feature is the first feature to leverage the Audi Traffic Light Information servic
  
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• CIO Nov/Dec Digital Magazine: Analytics innovators reap results

  08-12-2016 20:04
  
  Download the CIO Nov/Dec 2016 Digital Magazine.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Can you separate ‘identity politics’ from diversity?

  08-12-2016 19:49
  
  I got an email the other day from a reader who claimed I'm doing CIO.com's readers a great disservice by focusing my diversity and inclusion coverage on "identity politics" instead of emphasizing diversity of thought. Identity politics only creates problems, while cognitive diversity solves them, according to this reader.What are "identity politics"? It's the tendency of people from different religious, ethnic, racial and/or social backgrounds to form political alliances to advance issues impor
  
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• 9 big small business social media no-nos

  08-12-2016 19:17
  
  These days, just about every business, regardless of size, has a presence on social media. It might be just a Facebook or a Pinterest page, but chances are if you are a small business owner, especially a retailer, you have an account on one of the major social media platforms. And while having a Facebook and Pinterest (as well Twitter and Instagram) page can be beneficial, it can negatively impact your business if you make one (or more) of these nine small business social media mistakes.[ Relate
  
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• 7 ways to tighten enterprise social media security

  08-12-2016 18:56
  
  Thumbs upImage by Umberto NURSSocial media has become the new cyber battleground. Not only is this landscape growing rapidly, but it also represents one of the most dynamic, unstructured and unregulated datasets anywhere in the digital world. In the wake of the social media revolution, cybercriminals exploit businesses and their customers at a massive scale.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Facebook's Year in Review for 2016 isn't just fun and games

  08-12-2016 18:10
  
  In November, John Oliver “called it early,” declaring 2016 a truly terrible year. On Thursday, Facebook pretty much backed up that claim, releasing its Year in Review that reveals the most-discussed topics around the world on the social network.
  Facebook put together its year in review by ranking the most frequently mentioned topics in Facebook posts between January 1 and November 27. That data was then analyzed (and anonymized) to get a sense of the year’s most discussed issu
  
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• 78% off Senso Bluetooth Sweatproof Sport Headphones - Deal Alert

  08-12-2016 18:02
  
  These highly rated and inexpensive Bluetooth sport headphones from Senso promise high quality sound, sweatproof design, a comfortable fit, noise suppression, a long battery life and reliable Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity to your device. All for just $38 currently on Amazon, where the Senso sport headphones average 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,560 people (read recent reviews here). See the discounted headphones on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Linux Foundation adds an open source networking specialist to the team

  08-12-2016 18:00
  
  In recognition of the increasingly central role open source technology has played for the networking sector, the Linux Foundation today named Arpit Joshipura as its general manager for networking and orchestration.
  Joshipura, a veteran tech executive who has worked at Dell, Ericsson, and Nortel, among others, is considered by the organization to be a foundational contributor to open source software in general and networking in particular. Currently, he’s the chief marketing officer for Pr
  
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• BrandPost: 3 Sales and Operations Planning Considerations That Can Make or Break Business Alignment Are You Asking the Right Questions?

  08-12-2016 17:55
  
  Are your Sales and Operations (S&OP) meetings and process destined to fail? It happens more often than you might think. Like when S&OP is a one-off process or is simply not as strategic as it could be. Failure even occurs when metrics and incentives are in conflict. These obstacles are largely related to a general misunderstanding of the actual process, its purpose, and lack of company alignment.Luckily, there are three universal questions you can ask in preparation—the a
  
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• Cyberspies stole secrets from industrial giant ThyssenKrupp

  08-12-2016 17:45
  Germany-based industrial conglomerate ThyssenKrupp was hit by a cyberespionage attack earlier this year that resulted in data being stolen from its industrial solutions and steel producing units.
  An investigation revealed that the attack was carried out by a professional group of hackers from Southeast Asia and targeted technological know-how and research, according to the group,
  While hackers managed to steal some information, its exact nature is not clear, with the exception of certain projec
  
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• The Trump effect on cybersecurity: Tough to tell

  08-12-2016 17:31
  
  Donald Trump’s effect on cybersecurity after he’s sworn in as president next month will likely be toward military uses of cyber weapons and stronger tools for law enforcement to crack encryption, but the impact is hard to predict due to the vagueness of his proposals so far.
  The most detailed Trump cyber plan is just 175 words long and includes some initiatives that sound like what’s already in place.
  On the campaign trail and during debates he occasionally hit the topic, but
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 5 questions to ask your retail clients about GPS tracking and geolocation

  08-12-2016 17:27
  
  Digital marketers know that current smartphone technology can be used to deliver proximity-based, context-aware messages. Businesses can determine when a customer is close to a particular aisle, or when an employee is at a customer location making a delivery. Knowing where your employees are — in real time — gives you the power to help your mobile workforce stay organized, on track and working as a team. Knowing where your customers are can provide just-in-time personalized communica
  
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• Apple in talks with the NHL to put the iPad at center ice

  08-12-2016 16:55
  
  In early 2016, Apple struck a deal to put the iPad Pro in dugouts throughout Major League Baseball. Now, Apple wants to put the iPad on ice—no, not like that. TSN, Canada’s version of ESPN, is reporting that Apple and the National Hockey League are in “late-stage negotiations” to bring the iPad to the league’s 30 teams—31 by 2017.
  One aim behind the deal is to equalize the use of technology for each team. An unnamed source told TSN that currently, the more af
  
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• BrandPost: Bots: Our New Digital Fishermen

  08-12-2016 16:45
  
  About dating, they say there are a lot of fish in the sea. This is a handy metaphor too for thinking about apps, those little software packets swimming just under the surface of our interface. There’s one that will call a person to pick me up and take me places. Another one allows me to order meals from a variety of restaurants and grocery stores. Still another finds people for me to try to sleep with. Used to be you’d have to fish each one out of the system. If you wanted to use a
  
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• BrandPost: How IoT and AI will Disrupt Customer Satisfaction Measurement

  08-12-2016 16:27
  
  Measurement of true customer satisfaction has always been the Holy Grail of customer experience. Sure, there are several methods currently in use, including net promoter scores (NPS), customer effort scores, and customer satisfaction scores (CSAT). Typically these approaches are fed by customer surveys—quite often the results are too little and too late. But what would happen if we disrupted customer satisfaction measurement using the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (A
  
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• 20% off Hamilton Beach Breakfast Sandwich Maker - Deal Alert

  08-12-2016 16:00
  
  This kitchen gadget from Hamilton Beach is all about making a fresh breakfast sandwich that you can grab and go. Just choose your bread and layer on the fixings: egg, cheese, precooked meat, or other ingredients of your choice. In five minutes or less, your perfectly assembled breakfast sandwich is ready to eat. All removable parts simply go in the dishwasher for an easy cleanup. The sandwich maker averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 3,000 people on Amazon (read reviews). It's typical list pri
  
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• CIOs assess how Apple and Google approach enterprise apps

  08-12-2016 15:40
  
  Apple and Google both try to woo enterprise customers with unique strategies for business app development that mirror their respective visions. And as might be expected, each company elevates its strengths in enterprise and downplays points of weakness, according to IT leaders who spoke to CIO.com.Google cultivates a large group of partners to help organizations integrate Google apps with business processes, and it recently released a self-service tool, called App Maker, that's designed to speed
  
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• OpenVPN will be audited for security flaws

  08-12-2016 15:09
  The next major version of OpenVPN, one of the most widely used virtual private networking technologies, will be audited by a well-known cryptography expert.The audit will be fully funded by Private Internet Access (PIA), a popular VPN service provider that uses OpenVPN for its business. The company has contracted cryptography engineering expert Matthew Green, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, to carry out the evaluation with the goal of identifying any vulnerabilities in the
  
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• AMD strengthens gaming and VR on Linux with graphics improvements

  08-12-2016 15:05
  
  Windows is the indisputable platform of choice for gaming and VR, but Linux is catching up fast as graphics companies ramp up driver and hardware support for the OS.AMD is showing more love for Linux than ever before. The company on Thursday announced some hardware and driver updates that will strengthen gaming and VR on the OS.The biggest news is AMD's support for FreeSync on Linux PCs. FreeSync can improve the rendition of games and high-definition video by allowing GPUs to communicate directl
  
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• Moore's Law lives on with speedy 7-nm mobile chips coming in 2018

  08-12-2016 15:00
  
  How do mobile devices keep get faster, thinner, and more power efficient? It's thanks to the quick advances in chip manufacturing, which help churn out smaller chips packed with new features.The next round of premium smartphones early next year could feature chips like Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835, made using the latest, 10-nanometer process.Continuing with the famous Moore's Law observation, it's likely that two years after that, smartphones will get even faster and smaller chips will be made
  
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• 48% off Travel Cord Organizer - Electronics Accessories Case & Cable Organizer - Deal Alert

  08-12-2016 14:24
  
  Designed to protect and safeguard your electronic gadgets and save time on the go by easily storing and finding everything you need. This travel organizer offers a secure storage space for cord management, laptop and computer accessories putting everything you need in one place. This organizer also gives you special space inside for credit cards, passports, also for boarding passes, smartphone, tickets and has many pockets where you can put coins, keys, USB, SIM card, earphones, and other small
  
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• EMV migration delay doesn't let gas stations completely off the hook

  08-12-2016 14:00
  
  Last week, Visa, MasterCard and American Expressed delayed the EMV migration deadline for gas stations from October 2017 to October 2020 -- but that doesn't mean that gas stations can now relax their EMV upgrade plans.
  According to Gray Taylor, executive director at Alexandria, Vir.-based Conexxus, an industry association for the petroleum industry, gas stations need to continue to stay on top of their upgrade plans.
  Gas stations that have the older magnetic-stripe card readers will become liab
  
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• Prestatiecontracten bezig aan opmars

  08-12-2016 13:40
  Meer focus op de uitkomsten van een traject in plaats van voortdurend micromanagement rondom het proces: prestatiecontracten zijn aan een opmars bezig. Oók in de IT-wereld. Zeker nu klanten binnen de snel in omvang toenemende ‘as-a-service’-economie steeds vaker vragen om efficiënte plug and... lees meer
  
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• Jorien Oprins wint PON Scriptieprijs 2016

  08-12-2016 13:25
  Jorien Oprins (UvA) heeft de PON Scriptieprijs 2016 in de wacht gesleept op het laatste seminar van Platform Outsourcing Nederland. Zij ontving de bijbehorende cheque ter waarde van 3.000 euro uit handen van de voorzitter van de jury, Denis Verhoef.
   
  De scriptie Employment in the online outsourcing and impact... lees meer
  
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• U.S. and U.K. spy agencies have been intercepting in-flight phone calls for years

  08-12-2016 13:17
  
  U.S. and U.K. spy agencies have been monitoring in-flight mobile phone users for years, according to new revelations from the trove of documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.As early as 2012 the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was intercepting voice and data communications from commercial aircraft using the OnAir service to carry 2G mobile services over the Inmarsat satellite communications network. At the time, GCHQ did not have access to a rival in-flight m
  
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• How to conquer a CRM monster

  08-12-2016 13:00
  
  Richard Bexon has a succinct way to describe the previous CRM software used by the NAMU Travel Group: "a monster.""We had what I suppose you could call a legacy system here," says Bexon, COO of NAMU, a network of luxury travel agencies. Over the eight years that they used the system, too many people had their fingers into the code, and the monster didn't have a manual in case one of those fingers broke the entire system.That could be why, when in 2015, NAMU decided to scrap it and instead start
  
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• Larcom zet Transaction Robot in voor verwerking HRM-mutaties

  08-12-2016 12:47
  Larcom, een organisatie in Overijssel die tot doel heeft de maatschappelijke participatie van mensen met een achterstand op de arbeidsmarkt te verbeteren, gaat alle mutaties in het hrm-systeem voortaan automatisch verwerken en bijbehorende bedrijfsprocessen automatisch starten door middel van... lees meer
  
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• What the rise of social media hacking means for your business

  08-12-2016 12:30
  
  A product marketing manager at your company just posted a photo on LinkedIn. The problem? In the background of the image, there’s a Post-It note that contains his network passwords. You can barely see it, but using artificial intelligence algorithms, hackers can scan for the publicly available image, determine there are network passwords, and use them for data theft.
  According to data security expert David Maynor, this is not rocket science. In fact, the AI program is easier to use than a
  
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• TypeScript 2.1 ups ease of use, adds expressive code

  08-12-2016 12:00
  
  Microsoft released TypeScript 2.1 Wednesday with upgrades that reduce the friction of starting new projects, more powerful type-checking, and tools to write more expressive code.
  TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript compiling to plain JavaScript. A release candidate of version 2.1 arrived about a month ago.[ Use JavaScript in your dev shop? InfoWorld looks at 17 JavaScript editors and IDEs and 22 JavaScript frameworks ready for adoption. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with Inf
  
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• Mingis on Tech: Hot tech skills for 2017

  08-12-2016 12:00
  
  What tech skills are hiring managers looking for most as we head into 2017?Programming and application development -- always perennial favorites. Security, of course. Even help desk, which doesn't always get the respect it deserves. But wait, there's more.Those are just some of the in-demand tech skills that emerged from Computerworld's exclusive Tech Forecast 2017 special report, which asked senior IT executives about  hiring plans and talent needs for the year ahead.In this episode, Senio
  
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• Fighting ransomware: A fresh look at Windows Server approaches

  08-12-2016 12:00
  
  Ransomware is evil, and it continues to prey upon thousands of businesses every year. Most infections are fairly quiet affairs: A small business gets infected, almost always by some employee opening an email attachment he or she mistakes as legitimate but that really contains the payload of a virus. Then several undetected hours later, all of the business' files -- at least those the employee had access to, which in a lot of businesses without good security and permissions policies is all of th
  
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• Apple Swift attracts a flock of coding tools

  08-12-2016 12:00
  
  Apple’s Swift programming language rolled out to much fanfare in the spring of 2014. Since then, it has become a fertile platform for supplemental tooling, thanks to third-party projects ranging from an application server to a testing framework and a mobile form builder.
  Built to succeed Objective-C, Swift has taken off in popularity, thanks in part to Apple’s decision to open-source the language. Language popularity indexes such as PyPL and Tiobe have seen dramatic rises for Swift,
  
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• Ordina en T-Systems gaan samenwerken in Benelux

  08-12-2016 11:49
  ICT dienstverlener Ordina en leverancier van infra en cloudoplossingen T-Systems gaan samen de markt op in de Benelux. Klanten kunnen straks kiezen uit een  aanbod waarin zowel cloud-, werkplek- als applicatiediensten zitten voor hun end-to-end ICT-behoeften.Ordina profiteert van T-Systems’ twin-core... lees meer
  
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• Samsung still struggling with the recovery of Note7 phones from users

  08-12-2016 08:33
  
  Samsung’s recall of Galaxy Note7 smartphones because of exploding batteries is far from complete with some users, for example, in Canada still not turning in their devices for a refund or exchange.The South Korean company has now decided to cut these phones from the network, adopting similar measures to those taken last month in New Zealand and earlier this month in Australia.The company said Wednesday that from Dec. 12 functional limitations on Note7 phones, including curbs on the battery
  
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• New Windows 10 Insider Build allows you to shut down your PC with your voice

  08-12-2016 04:05
  
  In its latest Windows 10 Insider Preview Build, Microsoft has given you the power to shut down or restart your PC by your voice alone—a convenience that also may allow pranksters of all stripes to wreak havoc.
  Microsoft rolled out Preview Build 14986 of Windows 10 to insiders in the Fast ring on Wednesday, on the first day of its Windows Hardware Engineering conference (WinHEC) in Shenzhen, China. It’s a rather substantial build, offering the ability to restart, lock, or s
  
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• Intel, Microsoft renew 'Wintel' partnership with Project Evo and VR specs for PCs

  08-12-2016 04:05
  
  On Wednesday night, Microsoft and Intel reforged their traditional “Wintel” partnership with a collaboration called “Project Evo” in which the two companies said that they will work together to improve how PCs think, see and hear. Their initiatives include everything from improved security and authentication to gaming innovations and “mixed reality” experiences.
  Microsoft made the announcement at its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Shenzhe
  
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• Microsoft wants to enable cellular PCs, but will carriers bite?

  08-12-2016 04:00
  
  Spending time traveling can be a frustrating exercise in trying to find Wi-Fi. So much modern work often requires an internet connection, and while it’s possible to tether smartphones to PCs to help bridge the connectivity gap, that’s a clunky solution.Microsoft is aiming to help with that by supporting the installation of non-removable programmable SIM cards and data radios in PCs and Windows tablets. In the company's vision, users will then be able to purchase cellular data for tho
  
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• Bluetooth 5 is out: Now will home IoT take off?

  08-12-2016 02:33
  
  Bluetooth is aiming straight for the internet of things as the fifth version of the wireless protocol arrives with twice as much speed for low-power applications.
  Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which gains the most from the new Bluetooth 5 specification, can now go as fast as 2Mbps (bits per second) and typically can cover a whole house or a floor of a building, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) said Wednesday. Those features could help to make it the go-to network for smart homes and som
  
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• A Turkish hacker is giving out prizes for DDoS attacks

  08-12-2016 02:25
  
  A hacker in Turkey has been trying to encourage distributed denial-of-attacks by making it into a game, featuring points and prizes for attempting to shut down political websites.
  The DDoS platform, translated as Surface Defense in English, has been prompting other hackers in Turkey to sign up and score points, according to security firm Forcepoint which uncovered it.
  Users that participate will be given a tool known as Balyoz, the Turkish word for Sledgehammer, that can be used to launch DDoS
  
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