IT Executive news

• Facebook criticizes ad industry’s reliance on ‘proxy metrics’

  01-03-2017 23:15
  
  Two of the highest ranking members of Facebook’s C-suite this week spoke at a conference where they addressed the fiasco over inaccurate measurements, areas for growth in engagement and advertising, and the outlook for Workplace, its social enterprise product. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO Dave Wehner were interviewed on stage at the Morgan Stanley Tech, Media & Telecom conference.The social giant will be making consistent progress and changes to how things are measured on its a
  
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• Old Windows malware may have tampered with 132 Android apps

  01-03-2017 22:59
  More than 130 Android apps on the Google Play store have been found to contain malicious coding, possibly because the developers were using infected computers, according to security researchers.The 132 apps were found generating hidden iframes, or an HTML document embedded inside a webpage, linking to two domains that have hosted malware, according to security firm Palo Alto Networks.Google has already removed the apps from its Play store. But what's interesting is the developers behind the apps
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Trump's executive order travel ban and IT workers

  01-03-2017 22:38
  
  I periodically review offer letters, employment agreements and professional services agreements for many clients. My review is sometimes limited to intellectual property matters, given the prevalence of proprietary and confidential information at play in these relationships. Even more so when the business is heavily invested in technology or creative content.Many of my clients that provide IT services and support, as well as others with in-house IT staff, rely on temporary or contract workers to
  
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• Microsoft relaxes some Windows 10 update and upgrade rules

  01-03-2017 22:20
  
  Microsoft today announced that it would offer customers more options for installing -- and delaying -- monthly security updates and once-or-twice-a-year feature upgrades in the Creators Update slated to ship this month or next.
  "What we heard back most explicitly was that you want more control over when Windows 10 installs updates," John Cable, director of program management for the team responsible for Windows' servicing and delivery, said in a post to a company blog [emphasis added]. "We also
  
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• 6 dangerous toys that are not child's play

  01-03-2017 22:05
  
  Innocent toysImage by David DeHetreThe most recent breach of smart teddy bears -- which can receive and send voice messages from children and parents -- have been involved in a data breach dealing with more than 800,000 user accounts. The company behind the products, Spiral Toys, is denying that any customers were hacked.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Intel shows how smart cities are constantly communicating

  01-03-2017 21:58
  
  Intel showed the future of smart cities at Mobile World Congress, and it’s an always-watching, always-communicating city. Maybe that creeps you out a bit, but there are potential beneifts: Improved traffic flow. Better information. Maybe even better help in an emergency. Here are highlights from the demonstrations. 
  A traditional-looking lamppost had a ring of cameras underneath its light fixture. Data from the cameras could be used by authorities to make decisions about traffic flow
  
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• Edge computing will blow away the cloud

  01-03-2017 21:38
  
  SAN FRANCISCO -- The ubiquitous cloud computing craze may not be long for this world if venture capitalist Peter Levine is right. The Andreessen Horowitz general partner said that as more computing capabilities move to so-called "edge" devices, including anything from driverless cars and drones to the boundless devices that make up the internet of things (IoT), the cloud will slowly evaporate."A large portion of computation that gets done in the cloud today will return to the edge," said Levine
  
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• US surveillance law may see no new protections for foreign targets

  01-03-2017 20:48
  Any reform of a controversial U.S. law allowing the National Security Agency to spy on people overseas will likely focus on its impact on U.S. residents, without curbing its use elsewhere.Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires on Dec. 31, and some digital rights groups are calling on Congress to overhaul the law to protect the privacy of residents of both the U.S. and other countries. Congress will almost certainly extend the provision in some form. 
  
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• Twitter goes on the offense against online trolls

  01-03-2017 20:05
  
  Twitter is taking the offensive in its ongoing battle online trolls and keep users from being abused.
  "We're continuing our work to make Twitter safer, moving faster than ever to do so," Ed Ho, Twitter's vice president of engineering, wrote in a blog post. "This week we're introducing additional updates that leverage our technology to reduce abusive content, give you more tools to control your experience, and communicate more clearly about actions we take."[ To comment on this story, visit Comp
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: AI vs. human: Are computers destined to beat us in every game?

  01-03-2017 20:02
  
  It has been almost 20 years since Deep Blue famously defeated the world chess champion Garry Kasparov, and one years since Google developed an AI which defeated the world’s greatest Go player. Now AI development has seemingly taken a further step in defeating some of the world’s greatest players in Super Smash Bros. Melee.As Quartz reports, an AI developed by MIT student Vlad Firoiu was able to defeat some of the best Smash players in the world, representing a new frontier in how AI
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: SaaS is eating the infrastructure world

  01-03-2017 19:32
  
  In many ways, we can compare the future of the software world to the emergence of self-driving cars. Just as we’re faced with questions around a unified set of operational standards for all companies eager to remove drivers from behind the wheel, serverless computing poses a similar set of challenges as software eats further and further into the infrastructure stack.When that happens, the driver (or in this case, the infrastructure) will disappear into the background and the car (in this c
  
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• Windows 7 share decline stalls, hinting at tough transition to 10

  01-03-2017 19:28
  
  Windows 7's decline in user share, driven for a year by desertions to Windows 10, has stalled for the last eight months, data published today showed.
  According to analytics vendor Net Applications, the user share of Windows 7 -- an estimate of the proportion of the world's personal computer owners who ran that operating system -- climbed by 1.2 percentage points last month to 48.4%, the highest mark since June 2016.
  And Windows 7 ran more Windows machines than any other edition, accounting for
  
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• Microsoft's budget Windows VR headsets roll out to developers soon

  01-03-2017 19:01
  
  A lucky few developers will be able to get their hands on a low-cost Windows virtual reality headset starting this month. Microsoft announced Wednesday that the Acer Mixed Reality Developer Edition headset will start rolling out to a handpicked batch of software makers starting the end of March, with more coming later.This marks the first release of a Windows Mixed Reality headset, which Microsoft first previewed last year. The headsets are supposed to stand out from the crowd because of a lower
  
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• Windows VR headset shows promise, needs polish

  01-03-2017 19:00
  
  The first Windows Mixed Reality headsets will start shipping to developers later this month, as Microsoft works to distribute the Acer Mixed Reality Developer Edition headset to a handpicked group of software makers.Microsoft offered me an early look at one of its internal prototypes, which shared a number of similarities with Acer’s hardware in terms of design and overall feature set. It wasn’t identical to the final hardware, but was built to roughly illustrate some of the capabili
  
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• Acer's Windows VR headset shows promise, needs polish

  01-03-2017 19:00
  
  Microsoft unveiled the first Windows Mixed Reality headset Wednesday, and an early look at a prototype version of the hardware shows promise, along with room for improvement.The Acer Mixed Reality Development Edition headset will start rolling out to developers later this month, but Microsoft offered a demo of a pre-release prototype during the Game Developers Conference this week.I wasn't allowed to photograph the device, but it looked like an almost entirely black and less branded version of t
  
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• 5 lessons from Amazon’s S3 cloud blunder – and how to prepare for the next one

  01-03-2017 18:47
  
  According to internet monitoring platform Catchpoint, Amazon Web Service’s Simple Storage Service (S3) experienced a three hour and 39 minute disruption on Tuesday that had cascading effects across other Amazon cloud services and many internet sites that rely on the popular cloud platform.
  “S3 is like air in the cloud,” says Forrester analyst Dave Bartoletti; when it goes down many websites can’t breathe. But disruptions, errors and outages are a fact of life in the clou
  
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• Everything we think we know about the Galaxy S8

  01-03-2017 18:42
  
  Now that the dust has settled from Mobile World Congress, we can turn our attention to the next big thing: Samsung’s Galaxy S8 event. Samsung opted to skip its usual Barcelona unveiling, but it won't be too much longer until we can get our hands on the most anticipated Android phone in years.
  After the Note7 debacle, Samsung is surely using the extra time to run a litany of battery tests on its new handset, because a lot is riding on this launch. Samsung has weathered the phablet storm fa
  
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• 50% off Star Wars Battlefront Ultimate Edition For Xbox One - Deal Alert

  01-03-2017 18:25
  
  The Star Wars Battlefront Ultimate Edition has everything fans need to live out their Star Wars battle fantasies, including Star Wars Battlefront and Star Wars Battlefront Season Pass. Rebels and Imperials alike will be able to expand their galaxy, with 4 epic expansion packs, including Star Wars Rogue One: Scarif. In addition, players can enjoy 30+ maps, 14 heroes and 14 game modes. The list price on the game has just dropped sharply down to just $19.99 on Amazon.  See the discounted Star
  
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• Azure Stack's third technical preview arrives

  01-03-2017 18:12
  
  Azure Stack, Microsoft’s hybrid cloud system, is getting close to release. On Wednesday, the tech giant unveiled the third major public beta for customers that want to test it out.The new release brings a handful of additional capabilities for users to test, like support for Azure D-Series virtual machine sizes and deployment with ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) to support systems that don’t have constant connections to Azure. Technical Preview 3, as this release is known
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Lesson from AWS outage: stop putting your eggs in the same basket

  01-03-2017 17:39
  
  It happened again.
  Amazon Web Services (AWS) went down yesterday for hours,  bringing down a huge chunk of the internet with it. I didn’t realize at the time that AWS was the reason that I was not able to play the latest episode of Supergirl on my Apple TV. And it was not just the iCloud that was affected. It was not just the small sites. Big players were hit big time, including Apple, Adobe, Docker's Registry Hub, GitHub, GitLab, Quora, Medium, Signal, Slack, Imgur, Twitch.tv...and
  
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• Beefed-up Twitter abuse tools let you silence those notorious eggs

  01-03-2017 17:30
  
  Twitter's escalating its fight against abusive behavior once again by introducing new tools and officially announcing older ones. 
  The company confirmed that it’s taking punitive actions against harassers, which were spotted in the wild earlier in February. When Twitter’s algorithms discover an abusive tweeter, the company will temporarily reduce that person’s reach. Anyone who doesn’t follow that user won’t be able to see their tweets for a set cool down peri
  
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• Palo Alto Networks pays $105M for LightCyber to better detect network attacks

  01-03-2017 17:22
  
  Palo Alto Networks has bought LightCyber for its behavioral analytics platform that can speed the time to detect intrusions that have already breached networks and are looking around for ways to carry out exploits.
  The $105 million cash deal brings LightCyber’s ability to analyze behavior of devices to discover reconnaissance by malware inside networks and lateral movements as it seeks to compromise vulnerable systems.
  Based on machine learning, LightCyber absorbs the behaviors of individ
  
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• Robots are just as plagued by security vulnerabilities as IoT devices

  01-03-2017 17:09
  
  An analysis of robots used in homes, businesses and industrial installations has revealed many of the same basic weaknesses that are common in IoT devices, raising questions about security implications for human safety.The robotics industry has already seen significant growth in recent years and will only further accelerate. Robots are  expected to serve in many roles, from assisting people in homes, stores and medical facilities, to manufacturing things in factories and even handling secur
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Did Nicolas Cage cause swimming pool drownings?

  01-03-2017 17:09
  
  Are your analytics telling you what to find, OR are they actually telling you what’s going on?We’ve all heard that “correlation doesn’t equal causation” and are aware of the risks of confirmation bias (using evidence to confirm already held beliefs). But how do you avoid those pitfalls to ensure your data provides a realistic picture of a situation?Let’s start with the easy one first: equating correlation with causation. There are two ways to avoid making that
  
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• Five sides and 1,500 access points: Wi-Fi at the Pentagon

  01-03-2017 17:00
  
  The central offices of the U.S. Department of Defense – better known as the Pentagon – pose a unique IT challenge in a lot of ways, but bringing the 6.5 million square-foot space up to the wireless standards of the modern office environment was a particularly big undertaking, according to a government contractor charged with the task.
  The idea of a technology that broadcasts information in all directions, invisibly, through the air, is an understandably unpleasant one to a certain c
  
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• February 2017: The month in hacks and breaches

  01-03-2017 16:41
  
  On February 5, an anonymous hacker kicked off February’s breaches, taking down a dark web hosting service that the hacker claimed was hosting child pornography sites. In the process, the hacker showed just how easily the dark web can be compromised.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Google slams the brakes on Pixel Chromebooks

  01-03-2017 16:20
  
  Google is pressing pause on its efforts to build Pixel laptops, leaving the in-house premium brand to tablets and phones.
  The company’s hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, recently told reporters during Mobile World Congress in Spain that Google had “no plans” to create a new Chromebook Pixel, according to TechCrunch. For now, Google is leaving it up to third-party Chromebook makers like Asus, Acer, HP, and Samsung to fill in the gaps.To read this article in full or to leave a comm
  
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• Beyond smartphones, Samsung wants its Exynos 9 chip in VR headsets

  01-03-2017 16:05
  
  In a room cordoned off from the Mobile World Congress audience, Samsung was showing off untethered headsets that operate independent of smartphones.These were prototype devices meant mainly to show off the processing power of its Exynos chips. Samsung already offers tethered Gear VR headsets, but now wants outside companies to use its latest Exynos 9 chip in untethered VR headsets and smartphones of their own.Exynos chips have been more of an internal project for Samsung, and have been used in t
  
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• Microservices offer speed and flexibility, but at a price

  01-03-2017 15:00
  
  Microservices are the latest evolution of services-oriented architecture, where an application is built out of many independent pieces all working together, and often deployed in containers.
  Benefits include speed to market, lower costs, and greater flexibility -- but they also come with their own set of security and management challenges.
  Lattice Engines, which offers sales and marketing analytics, is planning ahead with a very deliberate roll out schedule.
  "We're taking our time to build
  
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• 5 Terminator movies have taught us nothing

  01-03-2017 15:00
  
  You might think that after watching SkyNet battle humans through five movies and a television series, that robot manufacturers would be building in some safeguards. You would be wrong.
  In a new study of leading robot manufacturers, most had serious security vulnerabilities which could allow hackers to take over and reprogram the robots to spy on their owners, cause property damage, or even attack humans.
  "We have already seen accidents in industry," said Lucas Apa, senior security consultant at
  
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• Follow these career roadmaps to 7 hot IT jobs

  01-03-2017 14:57
  
  Do you have what it takes to be a mobile app developer, data scientist, systems administrator or DevOps engineer?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Apple: Mac users don't believe Tim Cook's hype about pro products

  01-03-2017 14:53
  
  Tim Cook is at it again. At the recent Apple shareholders meeting he promised that Apple will do more for pro users, according to a report by MacRumors. Unfortunately for Cook and Apple, many Mac users aren't buying what he had to say.Juli Clover reports on Cook's comments for MacRumors:
  During a Q&A session at today's shareholder meeting held at Apple's Cupertino campus, Apple CEO Tim Cook reassured investors that Apple is still very much focused on its professional customers and has plans
  
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• How Trillium Precise enhances customer interaction and satisfaction

  01-03-2017 14:44
  
  Aiming to help organizations better understand and retain their customers, Syncsort company Trillium Software today introduced a new data-as-a-service (DaaS) solution that brings together online and offline customer and prospect contact information for verification and enrichment.Dubbed Trillium Precise, the new product brings together Trillium's world-wide postal and geocoding data cleansing and enrichment of customer contact information with validation, verification and enrichment of email, ph
  
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• Facebook uses artificial intelligence to help prevent suicides

  01-03-2017 13:51
  
  Facebook is using a combination of pattern recognition, live chat support from crisis support organizations and other tools to prevent suicide, with a focus on its Live service.There is one death by suicide every 40 seconds and over 800,000 people kill themselves every year, according to the World Health Organization. “Facebook is in a unique position — through friendships on the site — to help connect a person in distress with people who can support them,” the company sa
  
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• BrandPost: How One of Tech’s Hottest Companies is Changing Support Forever

  01-03-2017 13:28
  
  “The first thing you’ll notice about our IT support is that we don’t have telephones,” says Atlassian Co-Founder and Co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes. “You can’t call IT.”
  I’m profiling Atlassian because I’m keenly interested in companies with a strong culture of service. What do they do differently? Why do my developer friends consider themselves not just Atlassian customers, but fans?
  For answers, I turned to Cannon-Brookes. Surely the laid-back
  
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• How unfilled tech jobs impact the U.S. economy

  01-03-2017 13:24
  
  With IT industry unemployment hovering at around 2.8 percent (as of Q3 2016) and organizations struggling to find talent, many companies find themselves with open, unfilled jobs. That's a problem not just for individual companies, but for the U.S. economy as a whole.
  "Filling open jobs doesn't just help workers. It also helps companies and the broader economy. Every job that's open is money left on the table, in the form of lost productivity for employers and earnings in consumers' pockets. When
  
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• Intel showed how 5G networking will power VR and self-driving cars

  01-03-2017 13:00
  
  Think about how annoyed you get when you lose your cell signal, and you can see why Intel is pushing for advances in the next generation of networking, also known as 5G. Sure, the company stands to profit from making chips and networking equipment to support faster broadband. Consumers, too, stand to benefit from a future where more things in their lives are connected. To get there, though, we’re all going to need more bandwidth.
  At Mobile World Congress, Intel demonstrated several initia
  
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• 4 things you’ll love about Dell’s XPS 13 2-in-1 and 4 you won't

  01-03-2017 12:43
  
  Dell is no stranger to the enterprise, and IT departments have long embraced the brand. But now, Dell is stepping up its offerings by jumping into the hybrid market with the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1. Hybrid devices like the XPS 13 2-in-1 offer a tablet and notebook experience all-in-one, but in reality they're always more of a tablet -- like the iPad Pro -- or notebook, like the Surface Pro 4.
  The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is not going to replace your iPad, but it gives mobile workers the option to quickly s
  
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• Trump says offshoring displaces ‘our best’ American workers

  01-03-2017 12:01
  
  President Donald Trump promised Tuesday to crack down on offshore outsourcing, which he blamed for displacing some of the best American workers. He didn't say how he might do it, and didn't raise the H-1B visa issue, which he has previously blamed for enabling offshoring.
  But Trump aimed a fiery broadside at offshore outsourcing at an Oval Office ceremony concerning two bills, both aimed at encouraging more women to study and seek careers in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mat
  
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• Review: Visual Studio 2017 is the best ever

  01-03-2017 12:00
  
  InfoWorld
  I mentioned earlier that Visual Studio startup time has improved over the years. For large solutions with many projects, such as a 2-million-line-of-code C++/C# project with a dozen DLLs and other separate modules on which I used to work, the new lightweight solution load mechanism can help a lot, because the individual projects are loaded on demand instead of all at once. That can make the difference between an annoying five-minute wait at startup time and a barely noticeable five-sec
  
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• Gradle upgrade builds Java apps faster for Android

  01-03-2017 12:00
  
  Gradle, the build system of choice for Android mobile development, has been upgraded with better support for building Java applications.
  Gradle 3.4 offers fast incremental results and "the end of dreaded compile classpath leakage," said Cedric Champeau, a software engineer who has worked on developing the tool. Changes in the upgrade can dramatically improve build times, he said.[ The big 4 Java IDEs reviewed: See how Eclipse, NetBeans, JDeveloper, and IntelliJ IDEA stack up. | Keep up with hot
  
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• Global cybercrime prosecution a patchwork of alliances

  01-03-2017 12:00
  
  We don't hear much about John Dillinger-style bank robberies these days, with exciting police chases to the state lines. In 2015, there were 4,091 traditional bank robberies in the US, according to the FBI, with an average loss of less than $4,000 per incident. No customers or bank employees were killed in any of these robberies, though eight would-be robbers were killed.
  The clearance rate for traditional bank robberies is around 60 percent, while the proportion of criminals that escape could
  
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• Ford thinks beyond cars for future mobility

  01-03-2017 10:25
  
  At first glance, you may mistake the small circular machine at Ford’s Mobile World Congress booth for a Rumba. But you would be wrong. It's called the Carr-E, and is one of Ford’s prototypes for a future personal mobility vehicle.The Carr-E is the brainchild of Kilan Vas, a Ford systems engineer based in Cologne, Germany. Vas built Carr-E as part of Ford's "Last Mile Mobility Challenge." The competition asked employees to come up with an electric prototype that would make commuting e
  
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• India's Reliance Jio is blazing a trail to all-IP mobile networks

  01-03-2017 09:03
  
  Fast-growing Indian mobile operator Reliance Jio may offer a glimpse of where all mobile networks are going eventually, to packet-based Internet Protocol infrastructure.At Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest gathering of the mobile industry, Reliance Jio stands out by having none of the specialized 2G and 3G infrastructure that long distinguished cellular carriers.Almost all mobile operators still have circuit-switched network gear in addition to IP systems. It came along with the 2
  
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• Smart teddy bear maker faces scrutiny over data breach response

  01-03-2017 04:06
  Did a toymaker ignore warnings about a data breach? That’s a key question swirling around Spiral Toys, a company behind a line of smart stuffed animals that security researchers worry can be easily hacked.On Tuesday, Spiral Toys said the breach, which affects 800,000 user accounts, only came to its attention last week on Feb. 22.The statement is raising eyebrows. One researcher named Victor Gevers began contacting the toymaker about the problem in late December, when he noticed t
  
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• 'Meet' Google's new videoconferencing service for the enterprise

  01-03-2017 00:13
  
  Google appears to have accidentally revealed its new group videoconferencing service for businesses on Tuesday, a week before a big user conference.
  The service, called Meet, appears to be its offering for businesses that want to do group meetings over the Internet. According to a saved iOS App Store listing captured by AppAnnie, it will support high-definition video meetings with up to 30 participants. That’s an upgrade over the company’s existing Hangouts instant messaging and vid
  
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