LAS VEGAS -- Executives at 1-800-Flowers.com expect a new wave in artificial intelligence technology will help to change their business so much it’ll be like running a brand new business.“We are on the cusp of a change as big as when e-commerce hit,” said Chris McCann, president and CEO of 1-800-Flowers.com. “It’s giving us the opportunity to have such deep relationships with our customers that it’ll be like the company hasn’t existed before. It can change our market, our supply chain. Everything. It will drive change all through the company.”That’s big talk from a businessman who knows about transformative change. After all, 1-800-Flowers.com already has transformed itself several times.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An initial progress report by the FCC-sanctioned and industry-led Robocall Strike Force this afternoon was highlighted by the claim that a trial of a single fraud-prevention technique had resulted in a 90 percent reduction in consumer complaints about scams involving automated phone calls falsely claiming to be from the IRS.Since the first meeting of the strike force in August, representatives from 30 companies held more than 100 meetings and produced a 47-page report detailing both their short-term accomplishments and future goals. And while the latter outweighed the former – a point emphasized by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler – there was a hopefulness expressed throughout the hour-long presentation that relief from the scourge of robocalls is on the way.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An initial progress report by the FCC-sanctioned and industry-led Robocall Strike Force this afternoon was highlighted by the claim that a trial of a single fraud-prevention technique had resulted in a 90 percent reduction in consumer complaints about scams involving automated phone calls falsely claiming to be from the IRS.Since the first meeting of the strike force in August, representatives from 30 companies held more than 100 meetings and produced a 47-page report detailing both their short-term accomplishments and future goals. And while the latter outweighed the former – a point emphasized by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler – there was a hopefulness expressed throughout the hour-long presentation that relief from the scourge of robocalls is on the way.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An initial progress report by the FCC-sanctioned and industry-led Robocall Strike Force this afternoon was highlighted by the claim that a trial of a single fraud-prevention technique had resulted in a 90 percent reduction in consumer complaints about scams involving automated phone calls falsely claiming to be from the IRS.Since the first meeting of the strike force in August, representatives from 30 companies held more than 100 meetings and produced a 47-page report detailing both their short-term accomplishments and future goals. And while the latter outweighed the former – a point emphasized by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler – there was a hopefulness expressed throughout the hour-long presentation that relief from the scourge of robocalls is on the way.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Portworx, a data storage company for containers, released the results of its recently completed survey. Although I can't vouch for the survey instrument, the survey sample or the analysis of the data, the results were interesting and the study appeared to be constructed well.Portworx's analysis of the survey data
This is what Portworx had to say about the results of its survey:
"The survey identified which business benefits IT professionals are seeking through the deployment of containers. Agility (75 percent) and reduced costs (53 percent) were the top benefits sought.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Surgery requires steady hands—and power.How do hospitals make sure they always have life-saving power? Or that standby generators and switches kick in when needed? How can patient safety be preserved during a power outage?Sprawling hospital campuses, large power needs and zero downtime tolerance make it difficult. It’s so important, though, that there are even federal regulations for hospitals to ensure they’re prepared for potential outages.With IoT-based facility management, though, hospitals concentrate on saving lives and worry less about power issues.The challenge: maintaining equipment
Emergency power supply systems (EPSS) are the critical power infrastructure that supports hospitals during a power outage. This standby network of generators and switches ensures critical, life-saving power for equipment is always available. The systems have to be regularly tested and monitored to make sure they are in good working order.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A team made up of executives from Aruba Networks and Panzura are out with a new self-funded startup this week that aims to deploy security tools that enterprises use in their campus and extend it to the cloud.The idea of Nubeva is to create a Security as a Service platform that takes existing security tools and controls that organizations use in their data centers and other on premises infrastructure and mirror that same stack of security tools in the public cloud. Nubeva has created a platform that automates the deployment of those security resources in the public cloud.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: How the Dyn DDoS attack unfolded +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A team made up of executives from Aruba Networks and Panzura are out with a new self-funded startup this week that aims to deploy security tools that enterprises use in their campus and extend it to the cloud.The idea of Nubeva is to create a Security as a Service platform that takes existing security tools and controls that organizations use in their data centers and other on premises infrastructure and mirror that same stack of security tools in the public cloud. Nubeva has created a platform that automates the deployment of those security resources in the public cloud.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: How the Dyn DDoS attack unfolded +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Authors: Roland Dobbins & Steinthor Bjarnason Since its inception in August of 2016, the Mirai ‘Internet-of-Things’ (IoT) botnet, comprised largely of internet-enabled digital video recorders (DVRs), surveillance cameras, and other Internet-enabled embedded devices, has been utilized by attackers to launch multiple high-profile, high-impact DDoS attacks against various Internet properties and services. Mirai serves as the basis of an ongoing DDoS-for-hire ‘booter’/‘stresser’ […]
Microsoft unleashed a ton of Windows and Surface news on the world from New York on Wednesday, revealing new Windows features and brand new hardware. Here's the run-down on the biggest news from the company's two-hour-long presentation.Surface Studio takes a fresh look at the Desktop PC
There were a ton of rumors about a forthcoming all-in-one Surface desktop, and Microsoft brought the thunder. The Surface Studio is an all-in-one PC with an ultrathin, 28-inch, 4.5K touchscreen. The screen is mounted on a pair of hinges that let it sit up vertically like a traditional desktop computer, and lower down to a drafting position, where the display is only inclined to the desk by 20 degrees.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This is an essential adapter if you need to connect your standard USB devices to the newer USB-C style connector found on the new Macbooks, Chromebooks and others. This one from Nonda is super small and fast, capable of data transfer speeds of up to 5Gbps with USB 3.0. The adapter averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from reviewers on Amazon (read reviews) and its typical list price of $15.99 has been reduced to $9.99. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The first version of a new mobile app is often like the first pancake. It tastes good, but looks less than perfect and gets pushed aside at the breakfast table. Launching a new app on the Play Store with its millions of apps and over a billion regular visitors can be like this for a new company with a new app.+ Also on Network World: How to break into Android development +
Compounding the problem is the average Play Store user is often less than tolerant of beta versions of software, quickly installing and removing the app and leaving little more than a record that the app with removed within a few seconds. And some leave bad feedback, dissuading more tolerant users from installing the software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Following Friday's massive internet disruption in the U.S., a Singapore-based broadband provider reports it faced two distributed denial-of-service attacks, forcing users offline.The attacks, which occurred Saturday and then on Monday, targeted Singapore's StarHub, briefly cutting internet access for the company's home broadband subscribers before services were restored."These two recent attacks that we experienced were unprecedented in scale, nature and complexity," StarHub said in a Facebook posting on Wednesday.In addition, the company has reportedly said that malware-infected broadband routers and webcams were involved in the two attacks, producing a spike in internet traffic that overwhelmed the company's services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Following Friday's massive internet disruption in the U.S., a Singapore-based broadband provider reports it faced two distributed denial-of-service attacks, forcing users offline.The attacks, which occurred Saturday and then on Monday, targeted Singapore's StarHub, briefly cutting internet access for the company's home broadband subscribers before services were restored."These two recent attacks that we experienced were unprecedented in scale, nature and complexity," StarHub said in a Facebook posting on Wednesday.In addition, the company has reportedly said that malware-infected broadband routers and webcams were involved in the two attacks, producing a spike in internet traffic that overwhelmed the company's services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With all the recent attention paid to the IT skills gap and the need for more women and underrepresented minorities in technology, you'd think that the IT industry would have innovative solutions, programs and processes in place to fix it. You'd be wrong.New research from global professional services company Accenture and not-for-profit organization Girls Who Code, unveiled at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, held in Houston last week, that despite heightened awareness of the problem, without interventions, strategic planning and targeted tactics, the share of women in the U.S. computing workforce will decline from the current rate of 24 percent to 22 percent by 2025.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
No organization wants to see sensitive information walk out its doors, yet it happens with alarming frequency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
No organization wants to see sensitive information walk out its doors, yet it happens with alarming frequency.According to a recent study by Accusoft, a provider of document and imaging software, 34 percent of IT managers say their organization "has had sensitive information compromised due to poor file management practices." Yet 90 percent of them report being "confident they have the tools they need to protect their organizations’ documents."The survey of more than 100 U.S. IT managers and 250 full-time employees revealed an alarming disconnect between IT managers and their users. "Seventy-four percent of IT managers report that their firms have a formalized document management solution," according to the report. "At the same time, less than half (49 percent) of end users believed these resources were available." And 20 percent of employees "claim they don’t know what document management tools their employer uses."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Adobe Systems has released an emergency patch for Flash Player in order to fix a critical vulnerability that attackers are already taking advantage of.The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2016-7855 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database, is a use-after-free error that could lead to arbitrary code execution."Adobe is aware of a report that an exploit for CVE-2016-7855 exists in the wild, and is being used in limited, targeted attacks against users running Windows versions 7, 8.1 and 10," the company warned in a security advisory Wednesday.Users are advised to upgrade to Flash Player 23.0.0.205 on Windows and Mac and to version 11.2.202.643 on Linux. The Flash Player runtime bundled with Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10 and 8.1 will be updated automatically through those browsers' update mechanisms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Adobe Systems has released an emergency patch for Flash Player in order to fix a critical vulnerability that attackers are already taking advantage of.The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2016-7855 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database, is a use-after-free error that could lead to arbitrary code execution."Adobe is aware of a report that an exploit for CVE-2016-7855 exists in the wild, and is being used in limited, targeted attacks against users running Windows versions 7, 8.1 and 10," the company warned in a security advisory Wednesday.Users are advised to upgrade to Flash Player 23.0.0.205 on Windows and Mac and to version 11.2.202.643 on Linux. The Flash Player runtime bundled with Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10 and 8.1 will be updated automatically through those browsers' update mechanisms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
