IT Executive news

• Renewables missing from Trump's energy plan

  08-02-2017 23:32
  
  The nation's energy policies appear to be ready to change drastically under President Donald Trump's administration.
  The President’s "America First Energy Plan," published yesterday, appeared to focus almost exclusively on increasing fossil fuel production and rejuvenating the coal industry.
  The plan called for accessing "the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own. We will use the revenues fro
  
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• 5 things you need to know about Snap’s IPO

  08-02-2017 23:32
  
  Snap, the maker of Snapchat, is no longer shrouded in mystery. The company filed its long-awaited S-1 and revealed many unknown details about its financial status. Snap hopes to raise $3 billion next month in an initial public offering that could value the company at $20 billion to $25 billion.The company disclosed an array of achievements, liabilities and enduring challenges. These are the five most surprising and illuminating details Snap shared as it prepares to hit the road during the coming
  
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• Rackspace is cutting 6% of its workforce

  08-02-2017 23:11
  
  Via a blog post by CEO Taylor Rhodes, Texas-based cloud computing company Rackspace announced that it is cutting about 6% of its workforce in areas that have seen slowed growth in recent years.
  +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: How Rackspace will stay alive in cloud: Stop competing with Amazon, start partnering +
  Rhodes says the cuts will primarily be focused on the company’s corporate administrative expenses and management, and that the company’s “front-line” support staff and pr
  
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• After Ryzen, AMD has no immediate plan to purge its other PC chips

  08-02-2017 22:35
  An AMD Athlon or Sempron chip may not drum as much excitement as Ryzen, but loyalty has helped those brands stick around for more than a decade.So what happens to those and other PC processors, like the A-series and FX, when AMD's new Ryzen chips start flooding the market in March? AMD has said the first high-end desktop Ryzen chips will ship in March.For now, AMD plans to make no changes to its lineup of existing chips, a company spokesman said.Instead, the chips will be regrouped to focus
  
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• AMD: Sorry, there will be no official Ryzen drivers for Windows 7

  08-02-2017 22:02
  
  AMD won’t be providing Windows 7 drivers for its upcoming Ryzen processors, the company said, contradicting recent reports that indicated AMD would support Microsoft’s older operating system.
  AMD confirmed that it has tested and validated Ryzen on Windows 7, but that it won’t officially support the OS. It puts to rest the suggestion of a recent translated report from Computerbase that AMD would reverse its stance and ship Windows 7 drivers for Ryzen.To read this
  
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• Microsoft taps Touch Bar in Mac Office preview

  08-02-2017 21:49
  
  Microsoft yesterday released a refreshed beta of Office 2016 for Mac that includes support for Apple's latest hardware innovation, the Touch Bar that debuted in October on new MacBook Pro notebooks.
  On those laptops, Apple replaced the static row of function keys at the top of the keyboard with an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display whose contents change depending on the active application. Most Touch Bar support has come from Apple and its own software, such as Maps and Safari, but a f
  
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• AT&T, IBM, Nokia join to make IoT systems safer

  08-02-2017 21:44
  
  Some big players in security and the internet of things, including AT&T and Nokia, are joining forces to solve problems that they say make IoT vulnerable in many areas.
  The IoT Cybersecurity Alliance, formed Wednesday, also includes IBM, Symantec, Palo Alto Networks, and mobile security company Trustonic. The group said it won’t set standards but will conduct research, educate consumers and businesses, and influence standards and policies.
  As IoT technologies take shape, there’s
  
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• Facebook shareholders would have uphill climb ousting Zuckerberg from board

  08-02-2017 21:17
  
  A move by a watchdog group and a small group of shareholders to oust Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg from his post as chairman would be an uphill battle that would be unlikely to succeed and could hurt the company, analysts said.
  It would completely destabilize Facebook," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. "Zuckerberg still makes most of the key decisions and without him it would be a major risk… I don't see a single piece of upside in removing Zuckerberg f
  
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• Microsoft launches new Azure intellectual property protections

  08-02-2017 21:16
  
  Microsoft wants to help its cloud customers feel better protected from intellectual property lawsuit threats. To that end, the company is launching a new feature that’s designed to give them additional shielding.The Azure IP Advantage program (the IP stands for intellectual property) provides a trio of benefits. First, Microsoft will indemnify all Azure customers from intellectual property infringement claims resulting from their use of Azure products, including open source components.Seco
  
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• Intel repeats Obama-era pledge to invest billions in a new factory

  08-02-2017 21:02
  
  Intel CEO Brian Krzanich's meeting with new U.S. president Donald Trump was followed by a big announcement: The company will invest US$7 billion over the next three to four years to complete a factory to make 7-nanometer chips.The completion of Fab 42 -- where the chips will be made -- will create about 3,000 jobs in the Chandler, Arizona, area, Intel said. The chipmaker expects to help create 10,000 jobs tied to supporting the activities of Fab 42.Trump has been pushing for more jobs in th
  
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• The six Android Wear 2.0 changes you should check out first

  08-02-2017 20:55
  
  In case you haven’t heard, Android Wear 2.0 is here. Well, almost here. The first two watches to run it will be released on February 10, and within weeks, a whole assortment of new and old watches will be able to take advantage of the new features, which are nearly nine months in the making.
  But while the new version of Android Wear isn’t all that different from the version that was previewed at Google I/O last May, it is a pretty major upgrade to the long-in-the-tooth wearable OS o
  
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• 32% off JBL Charge 3 Waterproof Portable Bluetooth Speaker - Deal Alert

  08-02-2017 20:29
  
  JBL Charge 3 is the ultimate, high-powered portable Bluetooth speaker with powerful stereo sound and a power bank all in one package. The Charge 3 takes the party everywhere, poolside or in the rain, thanks to the waterproof design, durable fabric and rugged housing. Its high-capacity 6,000mAh battery provides 20 hours of playtime and can charge your smartphones and tablets via its USB output. A built-in noise and echo-cancelling speakerphone gives you crystal clear calls with the press of a but
  
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• Hasta la vista, Vista

  08-02-2017 19:52
  
  Microsoft will stop all support for Windows Vista in two months, ending the problem-plagued operating system's usefulness when it issues final patches on April 11.
  The OS won't be missed: According to analytics vendor Net Applications, which estimated user share by counting unique visitors to tens of thousands of websites, Vista ran on less than 1% of all personal computers powered by Windows last month. Still, even that small percentage translated into approximately 14 million PCs when using M
  
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• Insurance spin-out rides API-driven strategy

  08-02-2017 19:30
  
  Allstate has spun out an analytics business that harnesses driver risk scores, roadside rescue services and other telematics data, which it is packaging into software to sell to rival insurers, automakers, as well as ride-sharing companies. So it is fitting that the startup, called Arity, is also aping the API-based platform strategies of the very startups that have blown up the transportation industry.The symmetry isn't lost on Chetan Phadnis, vice president of Arity Platform, who says a platfo
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Is the best marketing team in-house, independent or through an agency?

  08-02-2017 19:30
  
  Marketing doesn’t just happen on its own. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, the marketing lead, or you’re in some other position of power, you’re going to need help to execute your marketing vision and achieve your goals. But how you seek that help will have a drastic impact on your overall effectiveness, cost and working style.Generally, there are three options to choose from:Hiring full-time workers. Full-time workers are always plentiful and are one of the most straightf
  
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• BrandPost: Cloud for the enterprise

  08-02-2017 19:15
  
  Portions of this post were originally posted on the Puppet blog, and are republished here with Puppet's permission.Enterprise companies turn to the cloud for lots of reasons: to quickly and economically provide development and testing environments; to burst at times of peak customer demand; and to generally be able to make changes faster and more flexibly.Whatever you think you may need from the cloud — and whatever concerns and reservations you may have — others have been there.To r
  
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• Accenture wants to help businesses secure their blockchains

  08-02-2017 18:37
  
  Accenture wants to help businesses use blockchain technologies more securely by locking away the encryption keys they use to sign transactions.It's built a system that blockchain developers can use to store credentials in specialized cryptoprocessors called hardware security modules (HSMs).HSMs are typically used by banks to store the PINs associated with payment cards or the credentials used to make interbank payments over the SWIFT network, and are much more secure than storing the credentials
  
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• Here's how Evernote moved 3 petabytes of data to Google's cloud

  08-02-2017 18:28
  
  Evernote decided last year that it wanted to move away from running its own data centers and start using the public cloud to operate its popular note-taking service. On Wednesday, it announced that the lion's share of the work is done, save for some last user attachments.The company signed up to work with Google, and as part of the migration process, the tech titan sent a team of engineers (in one case, bearing doughnuts) over to work with its customer on making sure the process was a success.Ev
  
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• Het gedroomde leidersprofiel

  08-02-2017 18:25
  Mensen op sleutelposities hebben vaak een te eenzijdige focus of achtergrond. Zo zijn IT-leiders vaak te veel gericht op de status-quo of op hun eigen positie en invloed, en minder op het totaal.Business- en topbestuurders moeten op hun beurt stappen maken op technologisch gebied. “Cultuur, structuur, business... lees meer
  
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• Android Wear 2.0 finally arrives, alongside two LG watches made in collaboration with Google

  08-02-2017 18:00
  
  At long last, the first Android Wear 2.0 watches have arrived. Rumored for months and subjected to endless leaks, they are indeed a collaboration between LG and Google, but if you’re looking for a “Pixel watch” or even a “Made by Google” seal of approval, you might be disappointed.
  The new watches, which will be available for purchase tomorrow, are LG watches through and through. The box may say they were “designed with our friends at Google,” but you w
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How historical data helps you manage your IT infrastructure

  08-02-2017 17:49
  
  When Ross joined a technology reseller as a system administrator, he felt like he was making decisions about the IT infrastructure in the dark. The company had not been monitoring their infrastructure, and he did not have the data he needed to do his job well.Of course, Ross wanted to be able to fix problems that caused slowdowns and downtime. More importantly, his goal was to make the infrastructure more resilient and, thus, prevent issues from occurring. He resorted to creating scripts and exp
  
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• 13 tech jobs that pay $200k salaries

  08-02-2017 17:36
  
  Which IT roles earn the biggest salaries? Thirteen tech jobs can pull in salaries of $200,000 or more, according to new data from a tech staffing firm.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• 13% off Jaybird X2 Sport Wireless Bluetooth Headphones (Storm White) - Deal Alert

  08-02-2017 17:29
  
  With a regular list price of $149.99, the current discount makes the Jaybird X2 Sport is now available with a 13% discount for this deal. Features include:Premium Bluetooth Audio For Skip-Free Music Outdoors
  8 Hours of Music + Calls With Complete Remote Controls
  Secure Over/Under-Ear Fit Options
  Lifetime Sweat proof Warranty
  Includes Comply Premium Sport Memory Foam Ear Tips, Patented Secure-Fit Ear Fins, Friction-Fit Silicone Sport Carrying Case, Silicone Ear Tips, Charging Cable & Cor
  
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• Lessons from the rise and fall of an open source project

  08-02-2017 17:15
  
  Eight years ago, the CyanogenMod project exploded onto the mobile device software scene. The Android-based open source mobile operating system quickly caught the attention of developers, Android fans and investors, and attracted interest from tech giants including Microsoft and Google. But at the end of last year the project imploded spectacularly.  Today the CyanogenMod project is no more, but the arc of its story offers fascinating insight into the world of open source software developme
  
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• Hard-to-detect fileless attacks target banks, other organizations

  08-02-2017 17:13
  
  A wave of attacks that have recently affected banks and other enterprises used open-source penetration testing tools loaded directly into memory instead of traditional malware, making their detection much harder.Researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab started investigating these attacks after the security team from an unnamed bank found Meterpreter in the random access memory (RAM) of a server that acted as the organization's Windows domain controller.Meterpreter is an in-memory attack p
  
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• HPE’s Mesosphere reseller agreement heats up container management market

  08-02-2017 17:08
  
  Hewlett Packard Enterprise this week announced an agreement with container management platform startup Mesophere to resell the smaller company’s flagship product, a data center operating system dubbed DC/OS.
  The news marks a validation of Mesosphere’s technology given HPE is seeing demand for the product from its enterprise customers, analysts say. It also reinforces the notion that more and more organizations are embracing the use of containers – a technology used to package
  
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• The IT-business gap remains

  08-02-2017 16:55
  
  In light of its increasingly prominent and strategic role, IT continues to remain in control of technology budgets. One-third of the CIOs responding to CIO.com's 2017 State of the CIO survey said IT controls 71 percent or more of their organizations' technology budgets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: macOS: How to speed up a slow Mac

  08-02-2017 16:53
  
  Macs, like any other computer, start slowing down over time. It’s a rather harsh fact of computing life that affects us all eventually. That speed demon Mac you bought a year ago won’t stay that fast as time goes by and, sooner or later, you'll notice the difference in performance.
  So how can you speed it up? A writer at CNet has some helpful tips that can make your Mac fast again.
  Matt Elliott reports for CNet:The only place I like seeing a beach ball is at a beach or in a stadium
  
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• Facebook's Community Help lets you aid your neighbors in a crisis

  08-02-2017 16:39
  
  Facebook is taking its Safety Check feature beyond the ability to just mark yourself and others as safe with a new addition called Community Help, which started rolling out Wednesday. Facebook first announced Community Help in November at the company’s Social Good Forum.
  Community Help allows Facebook users to offer each other assistance for basic needs during a crisis. This can be food, a place to sleep, baby supplies, and other essential goods or services. FacebookFacebook’s Commu
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: The 2017 state of strategic digital banking

  08-02-2017 15:00
  
  The unprecedented amount of disruption in the banking industry is happening across every market, every distribution channel and every single product line that is currently active in this segment, which is something that is changing the very core of the banking business model. The appearance and fast proliferation of low-cost FinTech competitors poses a potentially fatal risk that will bring traditional banks’ IT systems and ecosystems to their limit, as well as their skill to ability to ra
  
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• 14 best tech jobs in America

  08-02-2017 14:51
  
  Best tech jobs in AmericaImage by ThinkstockFor the second year in a row, data scientist tops the list of Glassdoor's Best Jobs in America followed by DevOps engineer and data engineer. Though Glassdoor expanded 2017's list to 50 -- up from 25 in 2016 -- technology jobs continued to dominate the list, with fourteen roles represented on the list from the IT industry."In particular for tech jobs, companies across all industries are hiring workers for these needed positions, including employers in
  
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• Transavia besteedt infra uit aan Cegeka

  08-02-2017 14:38
  Vliegmaatschappij Transavia besteedt zijn volledige ICT-infrastructuur uit aan ICT-dienstverlener Cegeka. Eerder dit jaar sloot Transavia al een overeenkomst met de dienstverlener voor inrichting en beheer van werkplekken.
   
  De ICT-infrastructuur wordt ondergebracht in een hybride cloudomgeving van Cegeka... lees meer
  
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• Our favorite Android apps for tracking and trading stocks

  08-02-2017 13:00
  
  You don’t have to be a day trader to keep a close eye on the stock market. With the Dow crossing the 20,000 threshhold and tech stocks hitting record highs on a seemingly daily basis, watching the market can be as exciting as the Super Bowl, with ebbs, flows, peaks, valleys, and of course, a whole lot of money to be made (or lost!).
  While Google doesn’t supply a standalone stocks app in Android, it does provide a way to track stocks in Google Now (or, if you prefer, the Google app).
  
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• What company execs can learn from Trump’s tweeting

  08-02-2017 12:47
  
  Like him or hate him, there's no debating that President Trump loves to tweet. What is up for debate, though, is whether his tweet storms will complicate what is already stressful work for the Secret Service.
  Enormous effort goes into protecting the President and his staff from hackers, and any tweets that could be deemed argumentative, hostile, or reactionary could elevate the risk of a targeted cyber attack on the White House.
  In the same way, executives at major enterprises also need to be c
  
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• Open source users: It’s time for extreme vetting

  08-02-2017 12:00
  
  Open source software is the norm these days rather than the exception. The code is being written in high volumes and turning up in critical applications. While having this code available can offer big benefits, users also must be wary of issues the code can present and implement proper vetting.
  Josh Bressers, cybersecurity strategist at Red Hat, emphasized this point during a recent talk with InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill.[ Expand your security career horizons with these essential certif
  
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• Microsoft plugs continuous delivery into Visual Studio, Azure

  08-02-2017 12:00
  
  Microsoft is adding continuous delivery capabilities to its Visual Studio 2017 IDE.
  The Continuous Delivery Tools for Visual Studio extension, announced this week, lets developers set up an automated build, test, and release pipeline on the Visual Studio Team Services cloud ALM platform. It works with ASP.Net 4 and ASP.Net Core applications targeting the Azure App Services and Azure Container Services. Developers can monitor their pipeline with notifications in the IDE that alert them of any bu
  
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• How to root out bias in your data

  08-02-2017 12:00
  
  Human beings are inherently biased. So when companies began using computer algorithms to guide their critical business processes, many people believed the days of discriminatory hiring practices, emotion-fuelled performance reviews and partisan product development were coming to an end.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• At Dulles, a security awareness success story

  08-02-2017 12:00
  
  When Kjell Magne Bondevik, the former prime minister of Norway, was temporarily detained upon arriving at Dulles International Airport on Jan. 31, international controversy ensued.
  The controversy was purely political, and while I do not support the executive order stopping people from seven countries from entering the U.S., Bondevik’s detention had nothing to do with that issue. Instead, he was detained for additional questioning under a 2015 law that requires people who visited any of t
  
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• AMD reveals another edge for Ryzen vs. Intel's Skylake: It will be smaller

  08-02-2017 12:00
  
  AMD’s upcoming Ryzen CPU will occupy less space and offer twice the amount of cache of Intel’s 6th-generation CPU, according a news report. Oh, and there will indeed be a quad-core model.
  AMD engineers made the disclosure in a paper this week during the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, according to EE Times' Rick Merritt.
  The engineering paper said a quad-core Ryzen chip built on a 14nm process would be about 10 percent smaller than a comparable 6th-ge
  
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• 4 tips for managing multiple teams

  08-02-2017 11:15
  
  Managers juggle a lot -- besides day-to-day business tasks, they're also responsible for ensuring everyone on the team is working to their full potential. And for managers who oversee multiple teams, it gets even more complicated."Managers have a tough job. They must bring out the best in the individuals on their team. They are responsible for coaching each individual to become a better employee, while also driving the success of the team as a whole," says Kim Duggan, CEO of Betterworks, a compa
  
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• One CIOs vision of the future of the modern workplace

  08-02-2017 11:00
  
  I was chatting recently with Dan Kieny, CIO of Black & Veatch, and we started talking about our children, who represent the generation after the millennials. What began as a fun conversation about parenting soon turned into a discussion of the workplace of the future, and how Black & Veatch is creating a user-centric ecosystem that will drive a new way of working.Dan KienyMartha Heller: What defines the worker of the future?Dan Kieny: The worker of the future will interact with and leve
  
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• Google Cloud Search helps enterprise users find data quickly

  08-02-2017 07:15
  Google is wooing enterprise customers with the forthcoming launch of a service that will let employees find information they need from multiple sources.Cloud Search is a new service that will allow users to find content from their company email, cloud storage and directory. Directory lookup provides users not only with their colleagues’ contact details, but also information about shared files and calendar events. More than that, Cloud Search is also built to proactively help users access i
  
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• BrandPost: The Evolution and Maturation of HPC in the Enterprise

  08-02-2017 02:39
  By Adnan Khaleel
  The convergence of high performance computing (HPC) and big data has been under way for years. As I noted in an earlier blog, HPC and big data grew up in different worlds and are now coming together—due to necessity. People using HPC applications often work with big data, and people working with big data often need the processing power of HPC systems. This convergence is giving rise to the era of high performance data analytics (HPDA) in the enterprise.To read this articl
  
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