Enterprise and startups are moving to cloud-based infrastructure to create an API-enabled value chain for new products and workflows. With this has emerged the idea of serverless infrastructure: running functions and applications completely in cloud-based servers where the hosting provider handles all of the sysadmin requirements.This is a new frontier in how business is leveraging cloud, and it is set to explode, especially amongst system integrators and consultants, as more data from sensors and machines are incorporated and as traditional businesses move even more of their IT infrastructure to the cloud.But to take advantage of this opportunity, businesses need to have their services and data accessible via application programming interfaces (API), which for most businesses is still just an emerging trend.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AT&T today jumped headfirst into the fast-growing software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) market with a new offering it hopes to bring to market next year based on technology from SD-WAN startup VeloCloud.SD-WAN is gaining steam thanks to its ability to bring software-defined networking (SDN) controls to the wide area network. SD-WANs allow customers to integrate multiple network connection types and let software intelligently route traffic based on application profiles and available network types. Gartner has estimated that SD-WAN can save customers significant costs compared to traditional WAN architectures too. IDC predicts SD-WAN will be a $6 billion market by 2020.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft will kick off its Dynamic Communities’ Summit 16 event on Oct. 11 in Tampa Bay, Florida—hurricane notwithstanding—with the introduction of Dynamics 365, the main suite in its line-of-business applications.Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise group at Microsoft, will lead the keynote, which will include live demos of the software and panel discussions for deep dives on what's new. The Summit is entirely devoted to Microsoft's Dynamics line-of-business apps, which includes Dynamics AX, CRM, GP and NAV.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The FBI has arrested a U.S. government contractor for allegedly stealing classified documents, possibly including hacking tools.Harold Thomas Martin III, 51, has been charged with stealing government materials, including top secret information, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday.Martin, who held a top-secret national security clearance, allegedly took six classified documents produced in 2014."These documents were produced through sensitive government sources, methods, and capabilities, which are critical to a wide variety of national security issues," the DOJ said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
People are sick and tired of being told to be more secure in their use of computers and when participating in online activities. So much so that they’re simply ignoring the blitz of annoying demands and are carrying on as imprudently as they’ve always done, according to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers.The U.S. Department of Commerce-operated lab recently published a report (subscription) on the subject in IEEE’s IT Professional Journal.The study’s participants “expressed a sense of resignation and loss of control” when the scientists asked them about their online activity, such as shopping and banking.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Aug. 25 may be Linux's official birthday, but Oct. 5 is in many ways the day it began to make a real mark on the world. That's when Linux creator Linus Torvalds officially released the first Linux kernel into the wild."As I mentioned a month(?) ago, I'm working on a free version of a minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers," Torvalds wrote in a newsgroup post on Oct. 5, 1991. "It has finally reached the stage where it's even usable (though may not be depending on what you want), and I am willing to put out the sources for wider distribution."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella received a compensation package for the year ending June 30 worth approximately $17.7 million, a 3% reduction from 2015, according to security filings.A preliminary proxy statement submitted Monday to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission showed that Nadella's pay cut was about a third of the 9% downturn in Microsoft's revenue during the same period.The chief executive received $1.2 million in salary, the same as the year before; $4.5 in a cash performance bonus, or 3% more than in 2015; and $12 million in stock awards, or 6% less.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If your business is located in the southeastern U.S., you're probably bracing for hurricane Matthew, which as of this writing is headed for Florida after making landfall in Cuba. All-too-familiar with the havoc a hurricane can wreak, you likely have a battle-tested plan for dealing with such storms and their aftermath.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
It’s been a week since we looked at the clown hysteria sweeping the nation, including a sheriff consulting with the FBI and Homeland Security over the clown threat, and now creepy clowns have even been addressed during a White House press conference.On Tuesday, Bloomberg’s Justin Sink asked White House press secretary Josh Earnest about the creepy clown craze. Sink mentioned that the New York Times reported 12 people have been arrested for either making fake clown reports, threats, or chasing people, and law enforcement is seeking clown advise from DHS and the FBI. He asked if President Obama was keeping tabs on the creepy clown phenomena and if the White House had any comments to discourage clown pranks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Blitzu Cyborg 168T Bike Tail light features 50 micro-LED chips, and emits up to 168 Lumens. It is simple to install and you can mount this rear light anywhere you want in seconds, such as the handlebar, the seat post or anywhere on the frame.Stop wasting your money and never buy batteries again. The Cyborg 168T bicycle rear light charges from your computer or any device with a USB port. It only takes 2 hours to fully charge. The Blitzu Cyborg 168T Bike Light averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews) from over 1,000 customers. Amazon indicates that its typical list price of $39.99 has been reduced by 52% to just $18.82. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's time to bow to the inevitable: PC OEMs will cease selling machines pre-loaded with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 at the end of this month. The only PCs for sale after that will be leftover inventory, and once they are gone, it's an all-Windows 10 world.Microsoft does this with every operating system, and given that Windows 7 is now 7 years old, it was certainly time. It had pushed off its end of life by two years after the Windows 8 disaster, just like it had to extend Windows XP following Vista.Business users will still have the option of downgrading your Windows 10 machine to Windows 7, of course, and Microsoft is committed to supporting Windows 7 until 2020. You need installation media for Windows 7, and you’ll have to activate the system manually, but you probably already knew that.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Rapid7 and Johnson & Johnson disclosed three vulnerabilities in the Animas OneTouch Ping insulin pump system, flaws which could be remotely exploited. However, the attack is sophisticated and both say the risk of exploitation is “relatively low.”OneTouch Ping is a medical device which comes with a wireless remote control that patients can use to deliver insulin instead of accessing the device under their clothes. The Johnson & Johnson Animas device is described as a “two-part system;” the pump and a meter remote which communicates wirelessly via RF communication “to deliver insulin from the pump.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas and Washington account for more than half of the $255 billion in corporate R&D paid for and conducted in the United States, according to the National Science Foundation. California alone accounted for 30% of the funding.
As with so many government reports, the data in this report is actually based on information a few years old due to the collection and analysis process, so in this case we're talking 2013. You can get into the gory details in the new report from the NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.
MORE: Microsoft puts AI front and center with research overhaulTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's common knowledge that an IT career pays well. But if you're an IT pro looking for a new role, your paycheck could get a whole lot heftier.IT staffing company Modis surveyed 500 IT professionals responsible for key decisions, including hiring, between August 1 and August 9, 2016. The research, Tech Trends: IT Leaders and the Employment Market, shows that approximately 32 percent of IT organizations are willing to offer a 10 percent to 15 percent salary increase to currently employed IT professionals in an effort to attract elite talent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Salesforce.com has agreed to buy user data management platform Krux Digital, potentially allowing businesses to process even more data in their CRM systems.Krux describes its business as "capturing, unifying, and activating data signatures across every device and every channel, in real time."Essentially, it performs the tracking underlying behavioral advertising, handling 200 billion "data collection events" on three billion browsers and devices (desktop, mobile, tablet and set-top) each month.With that staggering volume of data, "Krux will extend the Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s audience segmentation and targeting capabilities to power consumer marketing with even more precision, at scale," Krux CEO and co-founder Tom Chavez wrote on the company blog.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s always interesting to see what happens when a high-profile CEO sells his company and then finishes up his earn-out period. There are a few different models: some individuals go buy an island, start making films or go on permanent vacation. Others take some time to work out what they’re going to do and maybe take an entrepreneur-in-residence position for a time, while others jump straight back into the shark tank.+ Also on Network World: Application-layer DDoS attacks will increase, Kaspersky Labs predicts +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Salesforce's annual Dreamforce mega-conference kicks off in San Francisco on Tuesday morning, and the company will announce a slew of updates to its apps and services.
The company is enhancing its mobile apps, launching deeper integrations between Salesforce and Quip and improving its services for processing IoT data.
All of these new features are aimed at leveling up Salesforce's feature set at a time when the company faces fierce competition from tech titans like Microsoft and Oracle, along with a fleet of startups.
The Salesforce1 app for iOS will be updated to let managers see how their employees are matching up against their quotas and how sales are stacking up against projections and quotas. In addition, companies will be able to pay extra for a My Salesforce1 functionality that lets them deploy their own version of the app with their own branding.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
ADATA recently launched two new solid-state drives (SSDs): one it claims is the fastest and smallest external SSD, and the other is a new 2.5-in laptop SSD based on 3D NAND.Here, I review ADATA's diminutive external SSD as 2.5-in.At just 2.8-in x 1.7-in x 0.4-in, the ADATA SE730 SSD is not just shirt-pocket friendly, it can practically disappear in your pants pocket among your smartphone and keys. It also comes in a stylish, gold- or red-colored metal case. ADATA
ADATA's SE730 external SSD in its packaging.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In this Resume Makeover, Donald Burns, helps a senior marketing executive, Alice Gaines (name changed for this article), simplify her resume to tell a story about how she earned four major promotions over her 16-year marketing career with one company. The challenge for Burns was to not only list the titles in a way that made sense to hiring managers, but also to demonstrate how each promotion came with new responsibilities and skills.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)