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Have Salesforce's rumored acquisition suitors looked at its financials?
Any other firm with a balance sheet this bad would get hell from Wall Street. Read More
WHITE PAPER: Coresite
How to Cure Failed Business Continuity Plans
Understand why business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) processes fail, and how a hybrid cloud solution may help your cure those pitfalls. Learn More
WEBCAST: IBM Corporation
Transform your Business with Advanced Analytics
Consumer expectations are changing; retailers today have challenges in all fronts from acquiring to growing to retaining profitable customer base. 81% of consumers expect the same brand experience across all channels. Learn More
9 tech companies' earliest website designs
A trip down memory laneIn many ways, a website serves as most companies' digital fingerprint. While some corporate websites are merely gateways to buy and learn about new products (i.e. Apple), others may entirely define what a company is (i.e. Facebook). That said, it's always fun to take a trip back in time and explore what the digital fingerprints of yore looked like. Here are what some of the earliest tech company websites looked like when they first launched.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Why everyone hates DevOps
The IEEE's DevOps Unleashed symposium last week was dedicated to providing "expert advice on how to innovate faster by accelerating software delivery across the enterprise." The implication was clearly that DevOps is a great way to do that, and I totally buy into that assumption.But the presenters at the event at Mountain View's Computer History Museum spent a fair amount of time talking about the origins of the widespread resistance to many real-world DevOps implementations, and how to overcome people's perfectly understandable fears that DevOps will turn out to mean harder work for everyone—and more of it, too!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
From worst to first: Microsoft named most wanted place to work in IT
Three years ago, Microsoft was seen as a hellish place to work following a devastating profile in Vanity Fair. The company was portrayed as a miserable environment where employees were set against each other in an attempt to survive an onerous and unfair grading process called stack ranking.That was then and this is now. The company has received the Global Randstad Award for 2015, an independent employer branding survey that identifies the most attractive employers among thousands of companies. The survey collected the opinions of more than 225,000 respondents in 23 countries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Video: How waterproof is the Apple Watch?
Ever since the Apple Watch was unveiled, back in September, there's been a lot of discussion surrounding how the device might withstand water. In the months leading up to the actual Apple Watch release, there were a few reports indicating that the device was not waterproof, but rather water resistant. Which is to say, getting a few splashes of water on the device won't ruin it but it's not something you'd want to go swimming with.Now that the Apple Watch is on store shelves, or available for pre-order to be more exact, the inevitable wave of amateur Apple Watch durability testing has begun. And, as luck would have it, Apple Watch users will be glad to know that their new wearable is much more water friendly than anyone initially assumed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
The week cloud computing took over the world
If you had any lingering doubts that cloud computing was dominating the world of information technology, last week's quarterly earnings reports from Amazon and Microsoft should have obliterated them. Both companies announced big-time growth and revenue from their cloud operations.Amazon shares its numbers First, let's talk Amazon, which for the first time broke out the numbers for its Amazon Web Services division, including "amounts earned from sales of compute, storage, database, and other AWS service offerings for startups, enterprises, government agencies, and academic institutions." And those numbers were scorching!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
WHITE PAPER: VMTurbo, Inc.
Cloud: Delivering Performance in Shared Environments
This whitepaper explores how service providers use VMTurbo to provide consistent performance across all workloads, as well as the three roles a responsible managed service provider (MSP) takes in order to accomplish that directive. Learn More
Why the Apple Watch is in short supply
The Apple Watch launch has been somewhat peculiar insofar as Apple has limited purchases to online orders only. What's more, many consumers who were able to get their orders in won't be receiving their devices until mid-May, with some unlucky folks having to wait until June and July.So what's going on here? Isn't Apple supposed to have the best and most efficient supply chain in the business? Couldn't Apple have foreseen pent up demand for the Apple Watch and adjust supply accordingly?For weeks, there has been rampant speculation as to why the Apple Watch rollout has been so staggered. Now, thanks to a new report in The Wall Street Journal, we finally have some insight into what went down behind the scenes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Comcast launching 2-gig broadband to trump Chattanooga's municipal gigabit offering
Comcast announced this morning that it will introduce 2 gigabit per second (Gbps) internet service to customers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by the end of the year, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported today.Comcast said it will begin rolling out its Gigabit Pro service in June, and will serve about 200,000 of the area's residents, whether they are currently Comcast customers or not, according to the report.The service will challenge one of the most successful and well-known municipal broadband deployments in the country. The city of Chattanooga launched its fiber-optic internet service in 2008 under the city's Electronic Power Board (EPB), eventually offering residents 1 Gbps internet speeds for $70 a month or 100 megabits per second (Mbps) for $58 per month. Before long, Chattanooga earned the nickname "Gig City," and by 2013 those operating the network boasted that it had the "highest speeds in the Western hemisphere," both on its website and in a CBS News profile.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Microsoft is about to gain 15,000 retail stores
Microsoft has been looking to copy the runaway success Apple has had with its retail stores, and in the last six years it has opened more than 100 stores in the U.S. and Canada, with a few in Europe pending as well. That number is about to increase 15-fold thanks to the ex-Nokia stores it picked up.When Microsoft acquired Nokia's devices business, it also acquired the Nokia store chain, which has 15,000 locations around the globe, with 9,000 alone in India. Up to now, Microsoft hasn't done much with them. That's about to change.The Economic Times of India reports that at the opening of the first Microsoft Priority Reseller store in Gurgaon, India, the company announced plans to rebrand all of the stores around the world. There will be two types of stores: Microsoft Priority Reseller and Microsoft Mobile Seller.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Cisco's partner community: In Cisco we trust
In the New England area, when talking about the Patriots we often hear the phrase "in Belichick we trust." The expression comes from the fact that no matter what crazy thing Patriots head coach and general manager Bill Belichick does, it turns out to be the right thing. Bench Drew Bledsoe in favor of a rookie named Tom Brady drafted in the sixth round? No problem, win a Super Bowl. Cut defensive stalwarts Ty Law and Lawyer Milloy? Again, no big deal, win another Super Bowl. How about sign a legendary malcontent like Randy Moss? Go 16-0 and make the Super Bowl. It seems success creates trust no matter how crazy the idea may sound.This week, Cisco is holding its annual Partner Summit, north of the border in Montreal, Canada. Montreal is a fascinating city because it's the one city in Canada where the French and English live in harmony. I'm from the west coast, Victoria specifically, where people didn't exactly embrace the French. Conversely, go to the Maritimes or to other parts of Quebec and the same feeling will come across for Anglophones. It's this backdrop that made Montreal an interesting location for the 2015 Partner Summit, as I saw more harmony this year between Cisco and its partners than I have in years, based on an "in Cisco we trust" attitude from the partner community.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
IDG Contributor Network: New algorithms could keep drones from crashing into people
Major delivery firms are experimenting with drones for deliveries. If you've started to experiment with drone flying for fun, you'll know that it isn't easy. There's a steep learning curve, and they crash quite a lot, I've found.However, it doesn't have to be like that. Collision avoidance is technically feasible. The drone senses objects and diverts.One of the issues with that, though, has been that developers only have a certain amount of time and money to develop new features. Those features have, thus far, been the tempting, seductive ones, like "follow-me" where the hobbyist drone follows the pilot like a dog on a leash. It's the latest thing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
WEBCAST: Alcatel-Lucent
The Three Industry Trends Changing Enterprise IT
This webinar will look at how CIOs can leverage three intersecting trends – cloud, new technologies, and web-scale IT – to help their companies respond rapidly to new business opportunities. Learn More
3 new types of 3D printers
Although the cost of 3D printers continues to drop so that more people have them in their homes, it’s not like most homes have one. But innovative minds keep turning out new and improved 3D printers, such as the following three new types: one can print soft and cuddly objects from fabric; another includes actuators that allow an object to morph after being exposed to external stimuli; the last has a retrofit kit to change 3D printers into 3D food printers.Disney 3D-prints soft objects from fabric You know how little kids can be super attached to one particular item like a toy or a blanket? And if that item gets lost or destroyed, it’s a red alert unless you can find another exactly like the first. If that beloved object is a soft cuddly toy, wouldn’t be great if you could 3-D print another? Disney Research has come up with a 3D printer that can create soft interactive objects like a printed fabric bunny.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
PayPal patched critical remote code execution flaw four days after hacker reported it
It only took PayPal four days to patch a critical remote code execution vulnerability with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) count of 9.3. The flaw, in the Java Debug Wire Protocol (JDWP) in PayPal’s marketing online service web-server, allowed “remote attackers to execute system specific code against a target system to compromise the webserver.”JDWP, a component of the Java Platform Debugger Architecture, is the “protocol used for communication between a debugger and the Java virtual machine (VM) which it debugs,” explained independent security researcher Milan A. Solanki. “JDWP does not use any authentication and could be abused by an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected server.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Security flaw allows PIN bypass in YubiKey Neo
When it comes to password alternatives, the USB dongle YubiKey Neo is a popular option for providing two-factor authentication; it has been certified as providing the "highest level of security." The device has been lauded by third parties "for its tight security and ease of use."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Video: Oculus Rift-controlled robot could be your 'personal avatar'
A group of roboticists from the University of Pennsylvania have developed a robot that incorporates high-level sensors and Oculus Rift virtual reality to give the user a fully immersive experience from a remote location.According to an IEEE Spectrum report, the DORA system (which stands for Dexterous Observational Roving Automaton) streams video taken from the robot's cameras, which look a little bit like the face of WALL-E, to the Oculus Rift. Sensors on the VR headset monitor the user's head motion and send the data to the robot, which is programmed to replicate those movements in real time. So when the user turns his or her head to the left, the robot does too, and it streams the video immediately, giving off the feeling that the user is in the same robot as the environment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
IDG Contributor Network: Lasers will allow real-time satellite communications
There's an inherent problem with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites of the kind used for remote observation, such as border security and disaster monitoring.The problem is that because of their low orbit—they're a few hundred miles above earth's surface, rather than 22,300 miles as found with Geostationary (GEO) satellites—they can't see their ground station at all times.They can see the earth more clearly, so they are good for monitoring; they are cheap to deploy because they don't need such a big rocket to get it up there; and they don't suffer from as much packet latency as GEO satellites because the distances are shorter.However, they aren't visible from any given point on earth at all times—they're not stationary, and they're low-down.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
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