The nature of work has evolved rapidly during the last few years. Modern coworkers often have very different roles and responsibilities, and many work from multiple locations. Email is no longer an efficient tool for many of the tasks today's professionals perform, and face-to-face meetings are increasingly a rarity.Fortunately, a new generation of cloud-based collaboration tools are now available to help tackle some of these challenges. Here's a look at nine of the best options.1. Toggl for time tracking
If you've been turned off by the complexity of past time-tracking solutions, Toggl may be a better fit. The great-looking time tracker works in a web browser, and it's an intuitive tool that helps monitor your productivity. Toggl works offline, too, and it automatically syncs time tracked offline the next time it connects to the web.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It may come as a surprise, but more likely than not, when employees leave a company they’re taking company data with them. While it’s not always out of malicious intent, the amount of unprotected company information that walks out the door can result in bigger losses in the future.Biscom’s national study around data in the workplace revealed that more than one in four employees leave their job with company data. The study spotlights employees as a big security vulnerability to business data. To help prevent this, Bill Ho, CEO of Biscom, offers a few tips to minimize this threat.1. Establish clear employee policies on handling company data and informationTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There is a bit of a standing joke in the technology industry that revolves around enterprise software, the software that the largest organizations in the world use to run their core processes. While these solutions are robust and secure, the joke tends to be it's at the expense of the users, who often complain about poor user experience, inflexibility and essentially having to change the way they work within the business to suit the software. While user-centric design might be a huge buzzword in management circles, for those poor users of enterprise software, it seems to be a foreign concept.+ Also on Network World: Where do mobile apps fit in the world of enterprise software? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The TP-07 Digital Wireless Thermometer is a perfect choice to accurately monitor your meat remotely. Stop going back and forth from indoors to outdoors to check up on your meat, and instead monitor it from 300 feet away! Does your recipe call for your meat to be at a specific temperature? Not to worry, this unit allows you to set your desired temperature, so you're enjoying the meat the way you prefer. If you're new to cooking or unsure of meat temperatures, don't worry our system includes programmed USDA approved temperatures for all kinds of meats at different doneness levels. This device averages 4.5 out of 5 stars (read reviews). Its typical list price of $45.99 has been reduced by 33% to $30.59. See the discounted ThermoPro Digital Wireless Thermometer now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Necessity is the mother of invention.So, it’s no surprise that the best solutions are designed close to where they’re most needed. How do you empower people in remote parts of the world to develop their own solutions? How can their best solution be shared globally with others to maximize the benefit?Responding to disasters in El Salvador
Floods and mudslides regularly devastate El Salvador. Villagers can identify impending floods and mudslides, but they are unable to warn others in time. Rugged terrain, lack of power and cellular networks present a formidable communication challenge. Reacción, a team of El Salvadorian experts in electronics, community development and disaster relief, decided to do something about it. Working with local villagers and global experts, they developed an IoT-based early warning system for disasters that’s now shared globally.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nearly a fifth of shoppers would avoid at a retailer that has been a victim of a cybersecurity hack, according to a survey.The 2016 KPMG Consumer Loss Barometer report surveyed 448 consumers in the U.S. and found that 19% would abandon a retailer entirely over a hack. Another 33% said that fears their personal information would be exposed would keep them from shopping at the breached retailer for more than three months.The study also looked at 100 cybersecurity executives and found that 55% said they haven't spent money on cybersecurity in the past yearand 42% said their company didn't have a leader in charge of information security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AMD knew it needed to make radical changes in its Zen CPU chip to become a force in the PC and server markets again.So when the chip designers sat down four years ago to etch out the Zen design, they had two things in mind: to drive up CPU performance as much as possible and to keep power efficiency stable.The company ultimately settled for a 40 percent improvement in Zen over its predecessor, Excavator."We had a hard time convincing the team we were going for 40 percent," said Mike Clark, a senior fellow at AMD. "It was a very aggressive goal, and we knew we had to do it to be competitive."AMD first promoted the 40 percent CPU improvement goal when it introduced Zen in 2015 during an overhaul of its chip roadmap. The company recently demonstrated chips to prove it has achieved the goal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I walked into an apartment in Boston on a sunny day in June 1995. It was small and bohemian, with the normal detritus a pair of young men would scatter here and there. On the kitchen table was a 15-inch CRT display married to a fat, coverless PC case sitting on its side, network cables streaking back to a hub in the living room. The screen displayed a mess of data, the contents of some logfile, and sitting at the bottom was a Bash root prompt decorated in red and blue, the cursor blinking lazily.I was no stranger to Unix, having spent plenty of time on commercial Unix systems like OSF/1, HP-UX, SunOS, and the newly christened Sun Solaris. But this was different.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Florida’s announcement Tuesday that a locally transmitted Zika case turned up Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, moves reported cases of the virus a little closer to Georgia. That’s where Maria Stephens, who is pregnant, works as a senior data research analyst.Stephens was initially skeptical about Zika and paid little attention to the headlines about it.“I don't really respond to dramatization and felt that things were possibly being blown out of proportion,” said Stephens. “I'm a statistician at heart and only listen to numbers, so when my quant-minded OB-GYN shared the figures with me, this threat became a lot more real."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Choosing a new Android phone isn’t easy. The Android universe is teeming with options, from super-expensive flagship phones, to affordable models that make a few calculated compromises, to models expressly designed for, say, great photography. Chances are that whichever phone you buy, you’ll keep it for at least two years. So choosing the best Android phone for you isn’t a decision you should take lightly. But we can make things easier. Everyone has different priorities and needs, so we’ve made some picks for the best Android phone in several categories. At the bottom of this article, we also list all our recent Android phone reviews—in case you have your eye on a model that doesn’t make our cut.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Few would dispute that cyberattacks are increasing in frequency and in intensity, and most organizations confirm they have now suffered at least one cyber incident. But do those organizations have a true sense of the full impact on the organization? After all, the direct costs commonly associated with a data breach are far less significant than the “hidden costs” incurred.Indeed, the “hidden” costs can amount to 90 percent of the total business impact on an organization, and will most likely be experienced two years or more after the event. These are among the findings of a recent study by Deloitte Advisory entitled, “Beneath the Surface of a Cyberattack: A Deeper Look at the Business Impacts.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There’s more evidence that the internet is changing the way we think. Problem solving and recall are among the things people use the internet for. However, the more one does it, the more reliant on the internet one gets, researchers say.And so much so that people who use Google and other internet tools a lot don’t even try to remember things, a study just published in Memory says.“Memory is changing,” says Dr. Benjamin Storm, the lead author in academic publisher Routledge’s press release. “Our research shows that as we use the internet to support and extend our memory, we become more reliant on it. Whereas before we might have tried to recall something on our own, now we don't bother.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The monsters read your full network traffic flow if they have your keys or you used weak ones.The monsters are in the hidden partitions of USB flash drives left in parking lots and technical conferences.The monsters are in the weakened smartphone OS that most of your users own.The monsters are in the containers you used from that interesting GitHub pull.The monsters are in the Cisco router where the Zero Day lives waiting for the NSA.The monsters are in the fake certificates your user swallowed in their browsers.The monsters are 10,000 CVEs that you never, ever checked.The monsters live inside your kernel, watching for the network traffic that brings them alive from their zombie state.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A recent data breach at Epic Games may have been avoided if the company had simply installed a security patch.On Monday, Epic Games reported that its internet forums had been compromised. The leaked data includes email addresses and hashed passwords taken from legacy forums at Infinity Blade, previous Unreal Tournament games, and an archived Gears of War forum.Epic Games declined to explain how the leak occurred, but a website that stores information on data breaches said hackers were responsible and that 808,000 users are affected.The anonymous attackers targeted the vBulletin forum software on Aug. 11, according to the website Leaked Source, which has been in contact with the hackers. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
MIT researchers have found a way to transfer wireless data using a smartphone at a speed about three times faster and twice as far as existing technology.The researchers developed a technique to coordinate multiple wireless transmitters by synchronizing their wave phases, according to a statement from MIT on Tuesday. Multiple independent transmitters will be able to send data over the same wireless channel to multiple independent receivers without interfering with each other.Since wireless spectrum is scarce, and network congestion is only expected to grow, the technology could have important implications.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD 9 tips for speeding up your business Wi-Fi
The researchers called the approach MegaMIMO 2.0 (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) .To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The recent success of Pokémon GO offers food for thought for online-offline integration — not so much in the world of video games, but in retail.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Much ink has been spilled over the changing IT services industry. Indeed, it is an industry well acquainted with—and perhaps even born out of—change. But the velocity of technological advancement happening today is unprecedented.Is the industry truly at a crossroads?The established industry players are dealing with two distinct macro shifts. IT outsourcing provider Infosys calls them “Renew” and “New.” Allow me to explain.+ Also on Network World: $1 trillion in IT spending to be ‘affected’ by the cloud +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security holes which could lead to “unauthorized access” to personally identifiable information is not something you want to hear in regards to the wireless networks of a federal agency tasked with collecting and storing financial and health care information. Yet a recent Office of Inspector General report did say it found vulnerabilities in the wireless networks of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); if exploited, it could lead to unauthorized access and even “disruption of critical operations.”The OIG at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conducted a wireless penetration test on 13 CMS data centers and facilities; CMS, an agency within HHS, administers federal healthcare programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The agency “collects, generates and stores financial and health care information.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An interesting thing happened last week that drove home the importance of network telemetry.My wife saw a calendar invite from Arista where they wanted to pre-brief me on their upcoming telemetry launch. In addition to running ZK Research with me by doing most of the back office work, she is also a cardiac nurse and was interested in the content of the briefing because telemetry is a critical element of her job. In her field, cardiac telemetry is used to constantly monitor the heart and can quickly alert the nurse in real time if something bad is going on. If there’s any problem at all, like arrhythmia, they can use the data to take action and save the patient.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here