Well, it's 2016, and a few years ago Gartner reported that "By 2016, poor return on equity will drive more than 60 percent of banks worldwide to process the majority of their transactions in the cloud."Enterprises across all sectors are either in the cloud, transitioning to the cloud, or thinking about making the idea of cloud a reality. For those who are preparing to make the move, there are a variety of concerns to consider and plan for in order to make for a smooth transition. In addition to deciding on the right cloud provider and whether to go with a private or a public cloud, CISOs also need to think about implementing solutions for controls on access, encryption, legal and compliance issues.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Between the new AirPods and stereo speakers, audio was one of the biggest stories with the new Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. But it was hissing sounds reportedly coming from the new phones when their A10 Fusion CPU is under heavy load that were grabbing headlines over the weekend.Apple hasn't formally addressed the reported hissing sounds yet, though has responded to customer complaints, which have started popping up online since the smartphone became available on Friday. Twitter
Supposedly you do have to put the phones right up to your ear to really hear the hissing sound, but nevertheless, the noise is worrisome for those who just plunked down hundreds for the device.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
SAP has made no secret of the fact that its bets for the future rest largely on its Hana in-memory computing platform. But broad adoption is a critical part of making those bets pay off.Aiming to make Hana more accessible to companies of all shapes and sizes, the enterprise software giant on Monday unveiled a downloadable "express" edition that developers can use for free.The new express edition of SAP Hana can be used free of charge on a laptop or PC to develop, test and deploy production applications that use up to 32 GB of memory; users who need more memory can upgrade for a fee. Either way, the software delivers database, application and advanced analytics services, allowing developers to build applications that use Hana's transactional and analytical processing against a single copy of data, whether structured or unstructured.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.ContempoKey features: Contempo is a real-time political news app: swipe left for “the left” and right for “the right.” Integration with Rock the Vote provides an opportunity to register to vote, check registration status. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I recently received a promotional message from a PR representative of a supplier of database technology trying to arrange a briefing prior to the upcoming Oracle OpenWorld. The come-on was based upon the notion that the needs of big data, Internet of Things (IoT) and the tremendous growth of smartphones, tablets and other intelligent devices have overcome the capabilities offered by relational database engines, such as those offered by Oracle.+ Also on Network World: Does 'share-nothing' NoSQL signal the end to system resources sharing? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If there was any doubt that AI has officially arrived in the world of enterprise software, Salesforce just put it to rest. The CRM giant on Sunday announced Einstein, a set of artificial intelligence capabilities it says will help users of its platform serve their customers better.AI's potential to augment human capabilities has already been proven in multiple areas, but tapping it for a specific business purpose isn't always straightforward. "AI is out of reach for the vast majority of companies because it's really hard," John Ball, general manager for Salesforce Einstein, said in a press conference last week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you write a negative review for a game, is that harassment? It is according to game developer Digital Homicide which is suing 100 Steam users for $18 million.After Digital Homicide developer James Romine filed a lawsuit, an Arizona judge granted a subpoena to obtain the personal “identification and associated data” of 100 anonymous Steam users. Romine alleges that the Steam group of Jane and John Does created a “hate and harassment group, Digital Homicides Poop Games.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Although Apple stumbled yesterday as it issued iOS 10, the new mobile operating system has gained traction to outpace last year's upgrade by the end of its first full day.At the 24-hour milestone, iOS 10 accounted for 14.5% of all iOS editions detected by Mixpanel, whose metrics platform is widely used by mobile app developers to track usage and user engagement.That was higher than the 12.4% accumulated by iOS 9 last year at the same post-release point, but still significantly lower than the record holder iOS 7, which collected a whopping 29.9% within 24 hours of its 2013 debut.Apple released iOS 10 yesterday at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Memory management can be challenge enough on traditional data sets, but when big data enters the picture, things can slow way, way down. A new programming language announced by MIT this week aims to remedy that problem, and so far it's been found to deliver fourfold speed boosts on common algorithms.The principle of locality is what governs memory management in most computer chips today, meaning that if a program needs a chunk of data stored at some memory location, it's generally assumed to need the neighboring chunks as well. In big data, however, that's not always the case. Instead, programs often must act on just a few data items scattered across huge data sets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Last week when I discussed the latest rumors surrounding Surface All-In-Ones, I added that there was no news on the Microsoft Band front. Now there apparently is news, and it's not the best.Microsoft's Band and Band 2 devices look like they run Windows 10, but they don't. They only run firmware. One of the rumors surrounding future Band products is that they would get the full OS, or at least enough of it to make it functional with PCs. That may not be the case, however. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports that the group working on bringing Windows 10 to Band was disbanded weeks ago. That doesn't necessarily mean Band 3 won't happen; it just means the group working on a Windows 10 port is gone. They could always release Band 3 with firmware just like the first two versions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s an all-too-familiar tale: A CIO pushes a new process, platform or digital transformation effort across the company and when it fails (as 70 percent of all change programs do, according to the famous statistic reported by Harvard Business Review), the CIO pins the blame on uncooperative end users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Data scientists are in short supply. But so too are managers that understand data science and machine learning enough to spot the opportunities for using these disciplines to optimize their businesses.McKinsey Global Institute has projected that by 2018, the U.S. alone will face a shortage of 1.5 million managers and analysts with the necessary analytics and data science expertise to fill demand.The business side of machine learning
To combat this problem, Data science automation specialist DataRobot announced today that it has updated its DataRobot University curriculum with Data Science for Executives, a half-day offering that teaches executives interested in the benefits of advanced data science how to identify opportunities to optimize their business using machine learning.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This power bank from Poweradd delivers huge power. Its 20000mAh capacity means you can charge an iPhone 6 eight times, Samsung S6 over five times, or a a large capacity iPad Air 2 almost twice. It will auto-detect the status of your device, to intelligently deliver power at the fastest possible speed with 2.1A max output. 900+ people rate this item 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews), and its typical list price of $49.99 has been reduced a generous 56% to just $21.88.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The initial challenge for the Internet of Things (IoT) was how to provide physical connectivity of small and often remote devices to the Internet. This issue has basically been solved with the plethora of wireless connectivity solutions. The real challenge for IoT is data organization, sharing and search on an unprecedented scale.Most discussions about IoT usually point out in passing that today’s machine data is concentrated in vertical, or isolated, data silos. However, they rarely explain why this is a problem. More important, they do not give a roadmap of how to solve this problem going forward. I will try to provide some insight on both points.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The first batch of iPhone 7 and 7 Plus reviews are out after five days of hands-on time, and the early word is mostly positive. The camera in particular is a stand-out, and the two lenses on the 7 Plus produce results that easily stand up to the competition, the Samsung Galaxy S7.As expected, dealing with the lack of a headphone jack was perplexing to some and outright irritating for others. But the impressive cameras on both iPhones, plus the improved battery life and water resistance, make them easier to use on the go.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Surreptitious smartphone services quietly tracking us as we move around have gotten privacy fiends up in arms. However, academics reveal that location tracking is not all about finding ways to sell us stuff. Researchers and scientists are altruistically using the data, too.In one case, they're using mobile device-based mobility patterns to track exposure to pollution with more accuracy, another in metropolitan planning.+ Also on Network World: Wi-Fi-tracing delivers vast insights into behavioral patterns +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has said that the internet domain name system is unlikely to be government property, ahead of the planned transfer by month end of the oversight of key technical functions supporting the internet, including the domain name system, to an independent multistakeholder body."It is unlikely that either the authoritative root zone file—the public 'address book' for the top level of the Internet domain name system—or the Internet domain name system as a whole" is U.S. government property, the GAO said in a legal opinion provided to legislators.The report by the Congressional watchdog comes ahead of a hearing on the issue Wednesday chaired by Republican Senator Ted Cruz from Texas. The Republicans are intent on blocking the transfer of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions, currently being operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) under a contract with the Department of Commerce, which expires on Sept. 30.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We’ve all heard tales of foreign intelligence entities breaking into hotel rooms and cloning a person’s hard drive while he or she is in the bar downstairs.You might dismiss it as the stuff of urban legend or Jason Bourne movies, but this style of attack does highlight one of the most basic weaknesses of today’s PCs: Their data is extremely vulnerable once an attacker has physical access to a machine. Cold boot attacks, USB exploits,or DMA attacks over FireWire, among other breaches, are all possible if a bad actor can get his or her hands on the hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At a time when the configuration management market was dominated by Puppet and Chef, an open source project called Ansible emerged with a simpler approach to automating IT environments. An agentless system that was easy to learn, Ansible quickly earned a name for itself. Before long, the developers behind the project formed a company to offer commercial support. That company -- first known as AnsibleWorks, then Ansible -- was acquired by open source leader Red Hat in October 2015.Docker. Ansible offers modules for building and running Docker containers, orchestrating containers across a Swarm cluster, and managing Docker images. There are advantages to building Docker images from Ansible playbooks instead of Dockerfiles. When you build an image from a Dockerfile, the application or environment can only be deployed in a Docker container. But when you build an image using Ansible playbooks, the environments can easily be replicated on any infrastructure -- bare metal, cloud instance, virtual machine, or Vagrant.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Apple Pay on websites launched on Tuesday with the release of iOS 10 for the iPhone and iPad -- and will hit Mac desktops when macOS Sierra launches next Tuesday.More than 200,000 websites -- including small and large retailers -- plan to support Apple Pay on their sites in coming weeks, Apple said Tuesday. Many of the sites include online retailers using e-commerce platforms run by Shopify, Demandware and IBM.The move means that online shoppers with iPhones, iPads and Macs updated with the latest operating systems can save time when finishing an online purchase through the Apple's Safari browser. Retailers that have signed up for the service are expected to see an uptick in the number of customers that finish a web purchase, instead of giving up because typing in credit information was considered too complicated, awkward or time-consuming.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here