IT Executive news

• Stop using SHA1: It’s now completely unsafe

  23-02-2017 23:35
  
  Security researchers have achieved the first real-world collision attack against the SHA-1 hash function, producing two different PDF files with the same SHA-1 signature. This shows that the algorithm's use for security-sensitive functions should be discontinued as soon as possible.SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) dates back to 1995 and has been known to be vulnerable to theoretical attacks since 2005. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has banned the use of SHA-1 by U.S. fed
  
  Read more

• Tesla plans to build three more Gigafactories, five in all

  23-02-2017 23:25
  
  Tesla is planning a total of five Gigafactories, where it will manufacture solar panels and battery systems for both its electric vehicles and for home and commercial energy storage.
  "Later this year, we expect to finalize locations for Gigafactories 3, 4 and possibly 5," the company stated in a letter to shareholders.TeslaTesla will become the largest manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries in the world once its Gigafactory kicks into full swing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment
  
  Read more

• Ransomware 'customer support' chat reveals criminals' ruthlessness

  23-02-2017 23:14
  
  Ransomware criminals chatting up victims, offering to delay deadlines, showing how to obtain Bitcoin, dispensing the kind of customer support that consumers lust for from their cable and mobile plan providers, PC and software makers?
  What's not to love?
  Finnish security vendor F-Secure yesterday released 34 pages of transcripts from the group chat used by the crafters of the Spora ransomware family. The back-and-forth not only put a spotlight on the gang's customer support chops, but, said a co
  
  Read more

• 11 low-tech, decidedly cool cars

  23-02-2017 22:48
  
  Retromobile 2017 Car ShowImage by Reuters/Benoit TessierOne of the true stellar classic car events on the world happened recently in Paris. “Retromobile” features hundreds of amazingly cool, some one of a kind models.  Here we’ll talk a look at 11 of the decidedly coolest – courtesy of Reuters.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Google's new AI aims to end abusive online comments using 'Perspective'

  23-02-2017 22:04
  
  The internet is a tough place to have a conversation. Abuse has driven celebrities and ordinary folks from social media platforms that are ill-equipped to deal with it, and some publishers have switched off comment sections.That’s why Google and Jigsaw (an early stage incubator at Google parent company Alphabet) are working on a project called Perspective. It uses artificial intelligence to try to identify toxic comments, with an aim of reducing them. The Perspective API released Thursday
  
  Read more

• 4 things we expect from Mobile World Congress 2017

  23-02-2017 21:58
  
  Mobile World Congress, the Davos of wireless technology, is happening next week in Barcelona, and it’s going to be a particularly important year, as the mobile landscape readies itself for a couple of fairly major shifts.
  Here’s our quick look ahead to next week in sunny Spain and the four main points we expect from the MWC show.5G, or at least previews of itThere’s been a big school of 5G press releases floating into our inboxes here in tech media just ahead of MWC (i.e., &ld
  
  Read more

• H&R Block turns to AI to tackle your tax return

  23-02-2017 21:39
  
  How would you feel about an artificial intelligence system handling your taxes this year?
  H&R Block, the tax services company, is betting that customers will be willing to have A.I. assist their human tax preparers in getting them the biggest refunds possible or at least reduce how much they owe.
  The company, which has about 12,000 offices in the U.S. and prepares 24.2 million tax returns worldwide, is using IBM's A.I.-based Watson to do it.
  "We are introducing something this tax season tha
  
  Read more

• 50% off Dell UltraSharp U3415W PXF79 34-Inch Curved LED-Lit Monitor - DealAlert

  23-02-2017 21:29
  
  This 34-inch 21:9 curved monitor with a panoramic view, cinematic WQHD resolution and rich sound has just sunk 50% to its best price yet on Amazon, making this a solid deal on the U3415W. Learn more and explore buying options for the U3415W on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• 50% off Dell UltraSharp U3415W PXF79 34-Inch Curved LED-Lit Monitor

  23-02-2017 21:29
  
  This 34-inch 21:9 curved monitor with a panoramic view, cinematic WQHD resolution and rich sound has just sunk 50% to its best price yet on Amazon, making this a solid deal on the U3415W. Learn more and explore buying options for the U3415W on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• Verizon scores a decisive win in wireless shootout

  23-02-2017 21:16
  
  Sorry T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint. Verizon has beaten you handily in an extensive series of tests of wireless network performance.RootMetrics, an independent testing company based in Seattle, performed thousands of tests in 125 metropolitan areas across the U.S., measuring speed, quality and reliability of voice calls, texting and data downloads. When the tests – all conducted in the last half of 2016 -- were tallied, Verizon came out on top or tied for first 658 times. The closest to Ve
  
  Read more

• Node.js 7.6.0 tackles asynchronous operations

  23-02-2017 21:11
  
  The Node.js Foundation this week has released Node.js 7.6.0, an experimental version of the server-side JavaScript platform that moves forward with async/await capabilities for handling asynchronous operations. But the Foundation advises enterprise users to skip using the new release in production and instead wait for Node.js 8 to arrive in April.
  With Node's release strategy, odd-numbered releases like the 7.x line are short-lived but feature cutting-edge capabilities still in an experimental
  
  Read more

• Telefonica-Sigfox deal is a big win for diverse IoT networks

  23-02-2017 21:09
  
  The global partnership announced Wednesday between Telefonica and IoT specialist Sigfox could ensure the latter’s long-term success while accelerating the overall growth of LPWANs (low-power, wide-area networks).
  Telefonica said it will integrate Sigfox’s energy-sipping, low-data-rate radios into millions of devices used for things like smart metering and asset tracking. The Spain-based mobile carrier operates in 21 countries across Europe and Latin America, so the deal should signi
  
  Read more

• How Intel’s CMO revitalized a ‘weak brand’

  23-02-2017 19:56
  
  DANA POINT, Calif. -- When Steven Fund joined Intel as its CMO in the middle of 2014, the brand was in disarray. “Intel was known for what it was, not for what it is or where it’s heading,” he said at the ANA Brand Masters conference.Despite Intel having what Fund describes as the “second most recognizable sound in the world,” the brand was stale and failing to evolve as Intel’s business evolved, he said. “We’ve got to evolve or die” because
  
  Read more

• 5G will help autonomous cars cruise streets safely

  23-02-2017 19:36
  
  Years from now, your first autonomous car may have a lot of help from 5G wireless networks to navigate the streets safely.
  5G will be as important to autonomous cars as 4G has been to mobile phones. The technology will help cars change lanes, recognize signals and draw up accurate maps. 5G will also help vehicles communicate in order to scope out road and weather conditions.
  For collision avoidance, 5G will connect cars to cloud services for object recognition. It will also provide a constant l
  
  Read more

• How to institute an agile IT outsourcing process

  23-02-2017 19:19
  
  Traditionally, IT organizations have spent six months to a year or more on the IT outsourcing transaction process, finding the right providers and negotiating a suitable contract. But as IT services — and, increasingly, as-a-service— deals have gotten shorter, that lengthy process may no longer make sense.Industry advisors and consultants have debated the potential benefits of speedier sourcing for several years. In today’s rapidly changing business and technology landscape, it
  
  Read more

• 33% off NETGEAR N300 Wi-Fi Router with High Power 5dBi External Antennas - Deal Alert

  23-02-2017 18:50
  
  Currently discounted 33% and selling for just $19.99, the NETGEAR N300 WiFi Router with external antennas (WNR2020) offers high-performance wireless speeds of up to 300 Mbps, and for the current price is a good consideration for the internet needs in your second home, apartment, dormitory, or as a drop-in replacement of your legacy router. It also features external 5dBi antennas for improved WiFi coverage and Push 'N' Connect for easy WiFi connections. The scheduled WiFi on/off button allow
  
  Read more

• FCC rolls back net neutrality ISP transparency rules

  23-02-2017 18:26
  
  The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted to roll back some net neutrality regulations that require broadband providers to inform customers about their network management practices.The Republican-controlled FCC on Thursday suspended the net neutrality transparency requirements for broadband providers with fewer than 250,000 subscribers. Critics called the decision anticonsumer.The transparency rule, waived for five years in a 2-1 party-line vote Thursday, requires broadband providers
  
  Read more

• BrandPost: Culture of Analytics: Good for People, Good for Business

  23-02-2017 18:10
  
  None of us like being in the dark. That’s because our curiosity is innate. We all want to know what’s what. As researcher Jonathan Litman put it, we find knowledge rewarding because it “dispels undesirable states of ignorance and uncertainty."But we’re never satisfied knowing just what things are; we also need to know why something is, how it came to be. We don’t simply want the answer; we want to be a part of the discovery process. What we learn along the way helps
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Payers of chronic care: why not spend a little to save a lot?

  23-02-2017 17:01
  
  Healthcare transformation is in the news again. Once again the dialogue will focus on the most frustrating constant of providing care: costs always increase. But there is another constant in healthcare that rarely makes the mainstream discussion: over half the costs are due to the lack of engagement of the chronically ill with their therapy. The CDC says that 86 percent of all U.S. healthcare costs are due to chronic disease and over 50 percent of those costs are attributable to patient behavio
  
  Read more

• Eleven-year-old root flaw found and patched in the Linux kernel

  23-02-2017 16:11
  Linux system administrators should be on the watch for kernel updates because they fix a local privilege escalation flaw that could lead to a full system compromise.The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-6074, is over 11 years old and was likely introduced in 2005 when the Linux kernel gained support for the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP). It was discovered last week and was patched by the kernel developers on Friday.The flaw can be exploited locally by using heap spraying technique
  
  Read more

• Bedrijven laks in preventie cybercriminaliteit

  23-02-2017 15:56
  Essentiële operaties zijn in gevaar omdat het organisaties regelmatig ontbreekt aan fundamentele hygiëne op beveiligingsgebied. Ze patchen niet op tijd, houden de toegang van gebruikers tot applicaties niet up-to-date, gebruiken geen applicatie voor het beheer van toegangsgegevens, waardoor deze veelvuldig... lees meer
  
  Read more

• Alaska Airlines lands industry veteran as new CIO

  23-02-2017 15:50
  
  Alaska Airlines has named travel industry veteran Charu Jainas its new CIO. Jain joined the company earlier this month from IBM as a critical and complex time. Jain's chief task is integrating the technology systems of Virgin America, which Alaska acquired for $2.6 billion in December."[Jain’s] experience as both an airline executive and consultant is perfectly suited" to help the company tuck in Virgin's technology, Alaska CFO Brandon Pedersen said in a statement. As a partner in IBM's gl
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: A look at India’s biometric ID system: digital APIs for a connected world

  23-02-2017 15:00
  
  The consistency of government-issued ID ensures connection to government benefits and financial services, limiting fraud, waste and abuse. In India, a lack of a national identification system has restricted access to public-sector goods and services. Indians had struggled when obtaining a driver's license or even enabling a mobile phone if they didn't have identification. That has changed. India has emerged as a global leader in digital identification and has established the largest database of
  
  Read more

• 9 proven methods for generating sales leads

  23-02-2017 14:46
  
  In the digital age, businesses have more ways than ever to attract new customers. Which lead generation strategies, or channels, are the most successful? That often depends on who you are trying to reach – and what you are selling. But the following nine approaches are considered by sales and marketing experts to be the most effective.1. Referrals
  “Did you know that 82 percent of B2B decision makers start the decision-making process with a referral?” says Alex Kehaya, founder,
  
  Read more

• Police arrest man suspected of building million-router German botnet

  23-02-2017 14:38
  
  Last year, someone turned a German internet service provider into a million-router botnet. German police think they will soon have the culprit.The U.K.'s National Crime Agency (NCA) made an arrest on Wednesday in connection with the November 2016 hack on Deutsche Telekom. The agency said it arrested a 29-year-old man at Luton airport, acting on a European Arrest Warrant issued by the public prosecutor's office in Cologne, Germany.The German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, or B
  
  Read more

• Healthcare firms plan to increase security spending

  23-02-2017 14:30
  
  After several high-profile breaches over the past couple of years, the healthcare industry plans to increase its spending on IT security more than other sectors.
  According to a survey released this Tuesday, 81 percent of U.S. healthcare companies plan to increase security spending this year, compared to an overall industry average of 73 percent.
  The spending intent is significantly higher than last year, when only 60 percent of healthcare firms planned to increase security spending.
  The higher
  
  Read more

• Amid cyberattacks, ISPs try to clean up the internet

  23-02-2017 14:30
  
  If your computer’s been hacked, Dale Drew might actually know something about that.He's CSO (chief security officer) at Level 3 Communications, a major internet backbone provider that's routinely on the lookout for cyberattacks on the network level. The company has linked more than 150 million IP addresses to malicious activity worldwide.That means all of those IP addresses have computers behind them that are probably involved in distributed denial-of-service attacks, email spam, or breach
  
  Read more

• Android's next destination: Untethered VR headsets with Snapdragon 835

  23-02-2017 13:30
  
  What is Android's next destination? Thanks to Qualcomm, it's going to be used in untethered VR headsets.
  Google's plan for VR headsets currently revolves around Daydream, in which smartphones are slotted into headsets like DayDream View. But VR's future appears to be in untethered head-mounted displays, which are self-contained computers. These headsets don't need to be hooked up to smartphones or computers to roam VR worlds.
  Google hasn't talked about a plan for self-contained VR headsets yet,
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: 2 ways new security technology will change your life

  23-02-2017 13:04
  
  Like water always flows through the path of least resistance, humans gravitate towards the most efficient ways of living. As a global community, our ability to quickly adapt to new methods and technologies has allowed our species to dominate the world. Our progress, however, is rarely achieved without periods of rapid change.In the early 1800s, locomotive trains were first presented as a new, high-speed method of transportation. For a brief period, many feared that people, especially women, woul
  
  Read more

• MWC 17: What's coming, what's not, and what we really want to see

  23-02-2017 13:00
  
  After reading leaks, rumors, and tea leaves for months, Mobile World Congress is finally almost here. In just about a week, we’ll get a look at some of the most anticipated phones of the year; all of them vying for our attention with their dual cameras, skinny bezels, and big, beautiful screens.
  And even with Samsung making us wait a little longer for the Galaxy S8, there will still be loads of phones, tablets, watches, and gadgets on display in Barcelona. But if you can’t wait unti
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: iOS: Disable auto-play sound in Facebook videos

  23-02-2017 13:00
  
  Facebook has made changes to how its iOS app plays videos. The company has decided to make videos automatically play sound, so now you’ll be stuck hearing advertisements and other babble when you scroll through your newsfeed.Not to worry, you can disable Facebook’s annoying auto-play sound in videos on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. A writer at Lifehacker has a quick and easy way to do it.Patrick Allan reports for Lifehacker:
  For your iPhone and iPad devices, start by opening the F
  
  Read more

• Are you afraid your car will be taken over?

  23-02-2017 12:46
  
  In 2013 Charlie Miller and Chris Valesek showed how easy it was to take over a connected car. It was a monumental moment that made the auto industry stand up and take notice of the vulnerability of the connected cars they manufactured.
  Miller and Valesek were not maliciously running cars off the road, but they did give demonstrations so that the auto industry would begin to take security seriously. As seen in this video, the two researchers had the capability through their laptops to shut down
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: How Domo is humanizing business data and making an impact

  23-02-2017 12:39
  
  For years the promise of business intelligence (BI) tools has been a straightforward one that pretty much anyone can understand. And yet achieving it has been incredibly complicated.Reduced to its basics, the promise goes like this: If you pay sufficiently close attention to your company’s day-to-day operating data – essentially what’s selling well and not selling well – you’ll discover new insights about your business that previously may not have been clear. And on
  
  Read more

• Why DRaaS is a better defense against ransomware

  23-02-2017 12:01
  
  Recovering from a ransomware attack doesn’t have to take daysImage by Eric E CastroIt’s one thing for a user’s files to get infected with ransomware, it’s quite another to have a production database or mission-critical application infected. But, restoring these databases and apps from a traditional backup solution (appliance, cloud or tape) will take hours or even days which can cost a business tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Dean Nicolls, vice president of mark
  
  Read more

• Why AMD had to change the Zen name to Ryzen for its new chip architecture

  23-02-2017 12:00
  
  You know when AMD’s Ryzen is launching, how much it’ll cost, and you even have a pretty good idea of its performance. But you might not know why AMD dropped the original Zen name for Ryzen, so we asked. And it all begins with what AMD couldn’t do with the brand.
  As John Taylor, corporate vice president of marketing for AMD, describes it, AMD was between a rock and a hard place. Mike Clark, an engineering fellow at AMD who led the Zen architecture development, had dubbed t
  
  Read more

• iPad smackdown: Microsoft Office vs. Apple iWork vs. Google G Suite

  23-02-2017 12:00
  
  The iPad makes a great laptop, and nowhere is that more obvious than in its productivity tools. Apple showed the way years ago with its iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote), and Microsoft has validated the notion with its Office suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). Of course there's also Google G Suite (Docs, Sheets, and Slides), which includes mobile versions of the apps for iOS.iPad productivity smackdown: Word processing comparediPad productivity smackdown: Spreadsheets comparediPad pro
  
  Read more

• How to scrub your private data from 'people finder' sites

  23-02-2017 12:00
  
  It doesn’t matter what you do online: The internet knows a ton about you, and that information is a mouse click away.
  Search any people finder site—Spokeo, PeekYou, Whitepages, to name a few—and odds are you’ll find a page listing your full name, date of birth, names of family members, current address, and phone number. Depending on the site's aggressiveness, it may offer (for a low membership fee or the price of registering an account) additional details such as past ad
  
  Read more

• Here's why self-driving cars may never really be self-driving

  23-02-2017 12:00
  
  It sounds like the beginning of a bar room joke.
  Two self-driving cars are headed down the highway when the lead car decides to   speed up to avoid being rear-ended by the second. That car, in turn, slows down to avoid hitting the first. Then a third car suddenly comes between the two, prompting  the slower car to change lanes to avoid and accident.
  The problem: There are cars in the lanes on either side of it.
  What's an autonomous car to do? The answer is no joke.
  The scenario is cal
  
  Read more

• How to gauge the efficiency of your company leadership

  23-02-2017 10:51
  
  Years ago, while managing a manufacturing plant, Steven Blue, author of "American Manufacturing 2.0: What Went Wrong and How to Make it Right." and current president and CEO of railway safety and productivity firm Miller Ingenuity, was worried about his workers. It was a brutally hot and humid summer day, and the factory floor was sweltering. Blue instructed his factory supervisor to make sure plenty of bottled water was available for the workers.
  This seemed to be working well, until one of the
  
  Read more

• Freebies from Reliance Jio hasten Indian mobile consolidation

  23-02-2017 08:52
  
  India’s largest operator, Bharti Airtel,  is to acquire the Indian mobile business of Norwegian carrier Telenor, in an apparent move to counter the impact of disruptive pricing by new entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm.The deal is the latest among carriers aiming to consolidate their operations in India. Vodafone Group confirmed recently that it was in talks with Indian operator Idea Cellular for a merger, while earlier Reliance Communications entered into an agreement in September to merg
  
  Read more

• Samsung starts production of new 10-nm Exynos 9 Series chip

  23-02-2017 06:38
  
  Samsung unveiled Thursday a new octa-core application processor that combines a custom CPU with a gigabit LTE modem and a separate processing unit for security applications, leading to speculation that it could be designed into the new flagship Galaxy S8 smartphone that the company is expected to launch soon.The Exynos 9 Series 8895 is already in mass production and Samsung expects the chip to be designed into smartphones, VR headsets, and automotive infotainment systems.The new processor chipse
  
  Read more

• Verizon ranks tops in wireless coverage and reliability by RootMetrics

  23-02-2017 06:01
  
  Verizon was named the "undisputed leader" for U.S. wireless coverage and network reliability for the second half of 2016 at the city, state and national levels, based on millions of field tests conducted by RootMetrics.
  Verizon benefited from its LTE-Advanced service started in summer of 2016, which provided a significant boost to Verizon's download speeds, RootMetrics said in a report released Thursday.
  Separately, Verizon announced on Wednesday that it will deliver 5G wireless service to pilo
  
  Read more

• Brocade's Ruckus Wi-Fi business finds a buyer

  23-02-2017 02:48
  
  Broadcom will unload the Ruckus Wireless Wi-Fi business for US$800 million when it takes over Brocade Communications Systems later this year.
  The buyer, Arris International, is a maker of video and broadband equipment, including cable modems and set-top boxes with Wi-Fi inside. As part of the deal, it will also acquire Brocade’s ICX business, which makes data center, campus and carrier Ethernet switches.
  Ruckus makes Wi-Fi gear primarily for enterprises and service providers. Brocade acqu
  
  Read more

• A hard drive's LED light can be used to covertly leak data

  23-02-2017 01:40
  
  The seemingly harmless blinking lights on servers and desktop PCs may give away secrets if a hacker can hijack them with malware.
  Researchers in Israel have come up with an innovative hack that turns a computer's LED light into a signaling system that shows passwords and other sensitive data.
  The researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev demonstrated the hack in a YouTube video posted Wednesday. It shows a hacked computer broadcasting the data through a computer’s LED light, with
  
  Read more

• Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Is Just $79.99 For a Limited Time If You Buy Refurbished - Deal Alert

  23-02-2017 00:30
  
  Amazon has discounted its refurbished Paperwhite models for a limited time, so with the current deal you can get one for just $79.99. That saves you $30 on the typical price of a refurbished model, and saves even more over buying it brand new ($119.99 new). A Refurbished Paperwhite E-reader is refurbished, tested, and certified by Amazon to look and work like new. The popular Kindle Paperwhite has a higher res 300ppi screen, WiFi, a built-in adjustable light, a long lasting battery, and best of
  
  Read more

• Kite-surfing could put rural Brits online

  23-02-2017 00:19
  
  U.K. network operator EE plans to deliver 4G internet access from a kite-like balloon first developed as an observation and communications platform for the military.The Helikite was invented in the 1990s and has also found favor with Antarctic explorers, disaster relief workers and emergency services. EE revealed its plans to deliver wide-area network coverage from the helium-filled balloons on Tuesday, although it won't have the first one in service until later in the year.According to All
  
  Read more

• Windows 10's Mail app users start seeing the Focused Inbox organization feature

  23-02-2017 00:04
  
  Sick of manually organizing your messages? Microsoft was on the case, apparently testing its Focused Inbox feature in Windows 10's Mail app. As of Feb. 22, though, it's live for both Office 365 subscribers and Outlook.com accounts.
  A number of users recently told MSPowerUser they were seeing the feature on their PCs. The testing isn’t restricted to Windows Insider users either, as some are apparently reporting the new feature as showing up on the mainstream build of Windows 10.T
  
  Read more

Follow @ITExecutiveNews on Twitter!