There continues to be lots of new products in the home Wi-Fi space. Vendors like eero, Ubiquiti Labs, Luma and Securifi have jumped into the wireless mesh space, taking on the notion of a traditional router and instead using smaller devices that can go into each room to provide better coverage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Personalized vitamins? Sneakers that tell you how to run better? T-shirts that request help if you collapse while running?Welcome to the future where products both help and watch out for you.How are such products designed? How can thousands of products be personalized?How do such hybrid products impact the bottom line and improve customer retention?Designing the next big hit
Consumer goods have changed. The old approach of mass production is changing to mass personalization. Discrete products are provided in the form of services instead. When you do that, customer loyalty and retention improves.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s been a year since I joined the ranks of cord cutters, so I thought I’d share a few tidbits learned along the way and opinions on streaming devices.ChromecastI first dipped my toe into the water by starting out with Chromecast; it was a first-generation clearance item, making it an inexpensive experiment. While it was easy to use, the device would overheat and lock up within 25 to 45 minutes of using it. Since it was plugged into a TV which was mounted against the wall, I moved Chromecast to another TV with better airflow around it. The device would still get hot, but it took longer to do so. Newer Chromecast models are supposed to be decent devices, but I can’t say that firsthand, since I switched brands.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New research from HR executive network and research firm Future Workplace reveals that companies are increasingly investing in career mobility programs to improve employee engagement, productivity and teamwork.The Future Workplace Forecast: Navigating the Future of Work surveyed 2,147 global HR leaders and hiring managers and highlighted an emerging trend: Employers are offering internal career mobility opportunities to allow employees to "test drive" new roles and prepare them for the future workplace, according to the research.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member. Google is joining not just the .NET foundation but the steering committee, alongside RedHat and Samsung, which is supporting .NET code on all of its Tizen devices, from smart TVs to wearables and IoT devices, running on ARM. The preview of SQL Server on Linux is ready for IT teams to try out and it has key security and data warehouse features, not just the basics. A version of Microsoft’s premier development tool, Visual Studio, has even come to Mac OS.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
President-elect Donald Trump on Monday sent out the strongest signal yet that the H-1B visa program is going get real scrutiny once he takes office.Trump listed five executive actions he plans to take on his first day in office. They include asking the Department of Labor to investigate "all abuses of the visa programs that undercut the American worker."Trump did not get into details and didn't specifically mention the H-1B visa, but his intent is clear. During the campaign, he was critical of the H-1B visa program and invited displaced IT workers from Disney to speak at his rallies. He said the visa is being used to undercut workers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has appointed two opponents of current net neutrality rules to his team charged with overseeing the transition in the Federal Communications Commission.The FCC voted in February last year by 3-2 to reclassify broadband as a regulated, common-carrier service, thus prohibiting providers from selectively blocking or throttling or offering paid prioritization of traffic. The new president, who will be sworn in January, will likely undo some of the policies in the 2015 Open Internet Order, as both his nominees to the transition team - Jeff Eisenach and Mark Jamison – have previously opposed the new FCC rules.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Depending on the size of the organization, the person who has the most impact on driving security advancement could be a C-level or board member, but non-executive administrators, and sometimes the one man IT/security show is the person paving the path.Whoever it is, every business needs someone who makes security not only a line item on the budget but also a part of the overall culture. More often than not, though, organizations prioritize security for one of two reasons.Josh Feinblum, vice president of information security at Rapid7 said,"Companies that care about security have either a progressive leadership team that believes it is important, or it is a company that has gone through a major event."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday shoppers using smartphones should beware of fake commerce apps and fake Wi-Fi hot spots inside malls, two security firms have warned.Hackers use these fakes to grab account numbers and sensitive personal information."Cyber criminals are increasing our risk of using mobile devices while shopping, whether it is Black Friday or Cyber Monday," warned Brian Duckering, mobility strategist for Skycure, an enterprise security firm, in a blog. "Going to physical stores and connecting to risky Wi-Fi networks, or shopping online both pose increasing risks we should all be aware of."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
President-elect Trump campaigned on a promise to get Apple to start manufacturing the iPhone in the U.S. But would you pay double the price for an iPhone if it helped make America great again?In this week’s episode of The iPhone Show, we break down why it’s unfeasible for the iPhone to be made in the U.S., instead of in China. Based on the labor costs alone, a new iPhone under Trump’s plan could cost upwards of $1,300. And that’s assuming the U.S. has the skilled workforce to assemble iPhones stateside and that all these workers would work for minimum wage.Trump has also campaigned for a 45 percent tax increase on all products manufactured outside of the United States. That alone could make the iPhone $100 more expensive.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Raspberry Pi is a happy-go-lucky little gizmo, isn’t it? I always associate it with education, cheap ways to get kids into programming, innocent little hobbyist projects and general “the world is a nice place” activity. And not unreasonably.Surely nobody would turn such an innocuous gadget into something malicious or dangerous, ri-oh, wait I forgot what sort of world we were living in for just a moment:Yeah, it’s some sort of missile guidance system, according to the string of Russian-language LiveJournal pages credited by Popular Mechanics, whose original report can be found here. Popular Mechanics says there’s hints in there that the weapon is guided by sound, which would be highly unusual for a weapon that isn’t designed to attack, say, submarines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Thanksgiving is in a few days, and talking about “things I am thankful for” is pretty traditional this time of year. So, here we go. Here’s my list of Linux-y (and free software-y) things I am thankful for in 2016. (At least the ones I could remember when I sat down to write this list.)1. I am thankful for the developers of cmus, tmux, midnight commander and all of the other projects that help make using the shell in Linux such a productive and enjoyable experience. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There has been much talk about Software Defined Networking (SDN) and how SDx benefits virtual environments and data centres. However an area that is often overlooked is how abstraction can apply to application performance and value across the wide area network (WAN).
The WAN has always been about connecting users to applications and moving data more effectively over long distances. This includes connectivity for collaboration among enterprise users, clients, suppliers, and partners, as well as the movement of data over distance for disaster recovery and business continuity.
While these requirements still exist, the adoption of virtualisation and the cloud across traditional WAN architectures, such as MPLS, has introduced performance bottlenecks, thereby impairing user productivity when connecting to data centre and cloud applications from branch and remote office locations. As cloud initiatives gain momentum and traction, CIOs are increasingly reevaluating their corporate WAN requirements.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Society for Information Management has announced that is reworking its annual SIMposium conference, which took place last month in Connecticut, and will come back in the spring of 2018 with an event dubbed SIM Connect Live.This year's event attracted hundreds of CIOs and other IT decision makers and business strategists to exchange thoughts on everything from leadership to risk management to the workforce of the future (See also: "CIO Security Lessons -- Dark thinking on IoT & exploding enterprise networks").To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Silicon Valley version of the American Dream goes something like this: a dishwasher, a bike messenger, an actor, a waiter (insert totally-unrelated-to-technology job title here) leverages his or her hobbyist-level coding skills to land a hot programming job and becomes a "rockstar developer."And nearly everyone who works in tech, from CEOs, venture capitalists, startup founders, and programmers themselves will tell you they don't care what a candidate's background is; where they went to school; what gender, race, ethnicity they are. All that matters is their tech chops and whether they can do the job. That's terrific, in the hypothetical.In practice, however, is where this dream breaks down; the HR professionals, hiring managers and tech recruiters who are on the front lines of hiring do care about those qualifications, to the detriment of both candidates and companies, says Harj Taggar, co-founder and CEO of technical hiring platform Triplebyte.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Regrets? These former CIOs have a few. In exit interviews, six ex-CIOs say they wish they’d spent more time engaged with business strategy, studied human psychology or gotten an MBA.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Apple is reportedly done with routers.While the company hasn’t said anything publicly, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (who has an excellent track record with Apple rumors) reports that Apple’s wireless router division has been disbanded. The engineers who were working on products like the AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time Capsule have been moved to work on other projects over the past year, according to Gurman.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This tire pressure guage from Fovsal features a lighted nozzle and display screen for ultimate visibility in low light, and doubles as a vehicle emergency tool with LED flashlight, car window breaker, seat belt cutter, and red safety light. It averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon, where its typical list price of $20 has been reduced 46% to just $10.87. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
One of the last vestiges of the old MS-DOS days, the Command Prompt, is looking like an endangered species. The latest Windows 10 preview build puts the Windows PowerShell, first introduced on Windows Server, front and center. Build 14791, believed to be the basis for the Redstone 2 upgrade coming early next year, replaces the Command Prompt window in many key areas of the operating system. Command Prompt is still there, just not as accessible. Microsoft is putting the emphasis on PowerShell as the main command shell going forward.Dona Sarkar, head of the Windows Insider Program, mentioned this change in her blog post discussing Build 14791. She notes that it is still possible to stick with Command Prompt if you wish: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There’s no denying it: Despite years of hype, wearable computing technology has yet to make a big impact on enterprise IT. But if you believe the last IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Wearables and AR/VR predictions, that’s finally about to change. And ironically, two of the smallest categories of wearables seem poised to make the biggest difference.Smartwatches and ear-worn wearables
Among the 10 predictions in the report, IDC predicts smartwatches—yes, those things that strap on your wrist to monitor your fitness activities, and not much else—will find favor among enterprises in pilot programs designed to “augment or replace enterprise-use smartphones in 2017 to communicate time-sensitive data.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here