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Holiday shopping goes high-tech: 3 trends retailers have adopted

With the holiday shopping season upon us, retailers are feeling the pressure to make big numbers during their busiest time of the year. Retailers generate 25 percent of their annual sales during this lucrative period according to the National Retail Federation (NRF).There are more challenges for retailers than ever before. Brick and mortar stores are struggling with fierce online competition. Department stores such as Target, Walmart and BestBuy posted year-over-year declines of 7.3 percent. Further, mobile commerce is on the rise. Mobile shoppers now make up 61 percent of total ecommerce traffic, according to Unbxd.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook’s latest experiment: Helping you find free Wi-Fi hotspots

Facebook says it’s not a media company, but it just might be turning into a Wi-Fi finder service. Users of the social network’s iOS app report seeing a new feature in the More section that lets them find nearby public Wi-Fi access points.The feature does not appear to be widely available at the moment, which means this is probably something Facebook is only testing. The social network tests numerous features all the time but this one is particularly notable.As The Next Web points out, helping users find public Wi-Fi could enable more people to use Facebook Live. If your cellular connection isn’t strong, a nearby Wi-Fi location can be a big help—unless, of course, your Facebook Live broadcast is dependent on your specific location.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Decentralized IT management raises concerns

VMware is in the midst of seismic change. The company was a pioneer in server virtualization and has grown to dominate the space. In the process, it became a supplier to virtually every large organization on earth. But the time, as they say, are a-changing, and VMware is under pressure. The rise of cloud computing vendors such as Amazon Web Services, new approaches towards technology such as containerization and serverless computing, and a fundamentally different way of doing enterprise IT all mean that some clouds are on the horizon for VMware. So, this is one company that wants to be tightly aligned with the wishes of its customers. Some, less sympathetic commentators would suggest that this is, in fact, a company that wants to spread fear and uncertainty within its customer base so that those customers will want to stick with their “trusted partner.” Either way, a survey recently commissioned by the company is interesting reading. Both in and of itself, but also given the unusual context VMware sits within.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP’s EliteBook 705 laptops pack AMD’s latest Pro chips

PC makers can't wait to test AMD's mysterious Zen chip in laptops. For now, HP and other manufacturers are making the best out of AMD's current chip offerings, the latest of which target professional users.HP has announced the EliteBook 705 family of laptops with AMD's Pro chips, which were released last month. Starting at $769, the laptops seem pricey for AMD-based systems.The EliteBook 705 family includes the 12.5-inch 725, the 14-inch 745 and the 15.6-inch 755 models. These systems can be configured with full-HD screens, up to 500GB of storage and 16GB of RAM.The laptops are targeted at business users, which may explain the price. Most high-priced laptops have Intel chips, but AMD wants a share of that market as it tries to squeak more profit out of chip sales.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon slashes cloud prices ahead of re:Invent

The week before Amazon Web Services kicks off its annual re:Invent user conference the company has cut prices of its two biggest products: virtual machines and object storage.The moves come as some analysts have noted that cloud price cuts have slowed in recent years. Price cuts are not dying though, as AWS’s moves from the past few weeks show.On Nov. 14 AWS announced between 5% and 10% reductions in the cost of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), it’s core virtual machine IaaS product, effective Dec. 1.This week, the company announced between 20% and 28% reductions in Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), also effective Dec. 1. Before the EC2 price reduction this month, that service’s price had not been reduced since January 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple teases 1-day Black Friday 2016 shopping event

In a novel approach these days, Apple is actually waiting until Black Friday, Nov. 25, until it reveals its Black Friday 2016 shopping deals. A slew of techie Black Friday deals have been touted by others, most of whom aren't waiting for the day after Thanksgiving.Apple merely teases that "Black Friday can't come soon enough" and invites consumers to visit its shopping site on Friday. The promo page, which features an Apple Watch, does mention that there is free two-day delivery on in-stock items ordered by 5pm on Black Friday and that by downloading the Apple Store app you might be privy to early access on items. Note that at least some Apple stores will have extended shopping hours too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM will open the first of four new UK data centers next month

IBM is opening four new data centers in the U.K., despite some of the gloomy forecasts for the country's economy following its vote to leave the European Union.It's five years since the company began offering cloud services in the U.K., and two years since it opened its second cloud data center there.The new data centers will raise the U.K.'s share of IBM's cloud capacity in Europe from one-sixth to more than one-third. That's an interesting bet on the U.K.'s future outside the E.U.Following June's "Brexit" vote, the U.K. is set to withdraw from the 28-country bloc in a little more than two years, once the U.K. government makes up its mind when and how to leave. After that, it's anybody's guess what role data centers in the U.K. will play in the broader European economy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM will open the first of four new UK data centers next month

IBM is opening four new data centers in the U.K., despite some of the gloomy forecasts for the country's economy following its vote to leave the European Union.It's five years since the company began offering cloud services in the U.K., and two years since it opened its second cloud data center there.The new data centers will raise the U.K.'s share of IBM's cloud capacity in Europe from one-sixth to more than one-third. That's an interesting bet on the U.K.'s future outside the E.U.Following June's "Brexit" vote, the U.K. is set to withdraw from the 28-country bloc in a little more than two years, once the U.K. government makes up its mind when and how to leave. After that, it's anybody's guess what role data centers in the U.K. will play in the broader European economy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: The long decline of online freedom

“Freedom on the Net,” Freedom House’s annual study on internet freedom around the world, sheds light on the fact that in many parts of the world, access to the free and open internet is simply not a reality. While this is due to a number of factors, for many people government-mobilized access restrictions and shutdowns present a significant barrier to the tremendous benefits of the internet. —The Internet Society

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Nate Silver shares the secrets of accurate predictions

Statistician extraordinaire Nate Silver won fame for correctly predicting the outcome of the 2008 U.S. presidential election in 49 out of 50 states. And he followed that up in 2012 by nailing the winner in all 50 states.How did he do in 2016? Well, let’s just say he wasn’t as wrong as most statisticians, as he gave Clinton a little more than a 70 percent chance of winning (not far from the Trump campaign’s own predictions), while others gave her odds of up to 99 percent.So, in the wake of a continually surprising election season, what did the founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight.com have to say to an audience of software and analytics professionals at New Relic’s FutureStack16 conference in San Francisco last week? Plenty, as it turns out. (Disclosure: My day job is editor-in-chief for New Relic, where I also wrote about Silver’s presentation.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Companies use IoT tech to personalize products, enhance consumer appeal

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

Cutting the cable TV cord: Roku private channels and fully loaded Kodi box

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

How career mobility programs improve retention

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

Why a cross-platform Microsoft is good for your business

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)

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