Surprisingly few tech insights in Steve Ballmer’s USAFacts data trove

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's USAFacts project, an ambitious and sometimes overwhelming repository of data about local to state to federal U.S. government spending and outcomes that was launched on Tax Day, is surprisingly light on technology-related data.Not that Ballmer is obligated to spend his post-Microsoft life focused on technology —indeed, he's mainly been known for his purchase of the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers in recent years — but given his background I expected that I might find more tech-related nuggets in this graphically-pleasing data trove that's been three years in the making. Interested in the possibilities for data journalism stories spun from USAFacts, I made an inquiry to the outfit's media relations contact and will update this post if I hear back from them with any clarification on possible additions of such techie numbers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Priority-Aware Hyperconverged Infrastructure ‘Turbocharges’ App Management

It uses an advanced policy-based management system.

Save $51 on Samsung Gear S3 Frontier Smartwatch Right Now – Deal Alert

Gear S3 frontier in dark gray is a timeless smartwatch, combining style with the latest innovation in digital technology. It features an always-on 1.3” super AMOLED full color display, and a distinctive steel bezel that you rotate to access apps or text, call and other notifications. Make payments via Samsung Pay. Keep track of your activity or share your location with its built-in GPS. And much more. With military-grade performance, the Gear S3 resists water, dust, extreme temperatures and the occasional drop. Gear S3 averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 900 customers on Amazon (read recent reviews here), where its typical list price of $349.99 is currently discounted down to $299, saving you 15%. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Cyber crime as a service forces changes in information security

Cyber crime has been commercialized. Infecting computers with ransomware or using an advanced persistent threat to pilfer intellectual property no longer requires deep technical knowledge. Just use Google to learn how to access the Dark Web, and you can find hackers who, for a price, are more than happy to write malware, create highly effective spear phishing campaigns and develop bogus websites for harvesting login credentials.+ Also on Network World: DDoS-for-hire services thrive despite closure of major marketplace + Major companies (think Fortune 500 organizations) understand that cyber crime as a service has changed how they handle defense. But for organizations still maturing their defensive measures, here’s what the transformation of cyber crime into an industry means for how you approach information security.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Cyber crime as a service forces changes in information security

Cyber crime has been commercialized. Infecting computers with ransomware or using an advanced persistent threat to pilfer intellectual property no longer requires deep technical knowledge. Just use Google to learn how to access the Dark Web, and you can find hackers who, for a price, are more than happy to write malware, create highly effective spear phishing campaigns and develop bogus websites for harvesting login credentials.+ Also on Network World: DDoS-for-hire services thrive despite closure of major marketplace + Major companies (think Fortune 500 organizations) understand that cyber crime as a service has changed how they handle defense. But for organizations still maturing their defensive measures, here’s what the transformation of cyber crime into an industry means for how you approach information security.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pushing A Trillion Row Database With GPU Acceleration

There is an arms race in the nascent market for GPU-accelerated databases, and the winner will be the one that can scale to the largest datasets while also providing the most compatibility with industry-standard SQL.

MapD and Kinetica are the leaders in this market, but BlazingDB, Blazegraph, and PG-Strom also in the field, and we think it won’t be long before the commercial relational database makers start adding GPU acceleration to their products, much as they have followed SAP HANA with in-memory processing.

MapD is newer than Kinetica, and it up until now, it has been content to allow clustering …

Pushing A Trillion Row Database With GPU Acceleration was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Just $59 for Roku 4 Streaming Media Player 4K UHD If You Buy Refurbished – Deal Alert

You can pick up the Roku 4 4K UHD player for far below list price, if you're comfortable buying refurbushed. Which you can be -- certified refurbished products are tested and certified to look and work like new, and come with 90-day warranties. Roku provides access to 3,500+ channels on demand, offering 350,000+ movies and TV episodes, and the ability to search across the top streaming channels. Follow movies, TV shows, actors, and directors and get automatic updates when new content is ready to stream. Roku 4 will automatically adapt and deliver the best picture quality your TV can display. Advanced upscaling ensures that your TV’s maximum resolution will be optimized, so whether you have an HD TV or a 4K Ultra HD TV, you’ll view the best picture possible. Gremlin hid your remote? Just press the button on top of your Roku 4 and your remote will tell you where it is. With a typical list price of well above $59, you're getting a solid deal if you decide to go refurbished. See the certified refurbished Roku 4 streaming media player on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Drunken man arrested for assaulting 300-lb. K5 security robot

So, you toss back a few drinks and decide now is the best time to “test” a 5-foot tall, 300-pound, egg-shaped security robot that is patrolling a Mountain View, California, parking lot. Although it might seem like a good idea when you are drunk, it probably isn't the best plan, considering it resulted in the arrest of 41-year-old man when he tried it.After Jason Sylvain assaulted Knightscope’s K5 Autonomous Data Machine in a parking lot, he was arrested and stands accused of “prowling and public intoxication.”Knightscope told ABC7, “It's a testament to the technology that police caught the aggressor and booked in him jail.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Drunken man arrested for assaulting 300-lb. K5 security robot

So, you toss back a few drinks and decide now is the best time to “test” a 5-foot tall, 300-pound, egg-shaped security robot that is patrolling a Mountain View, California, parking lot. Although it might seem like a good idea when you are drunk, it might not be the best plan, considering it resulted in the arrest of 41-year-old man when he tried it.After Jason Sylvain assaulted Knightscope’s K5 Autonomous Data Machine in a parking lot, he was arrested and stands accused of “prowling and public intoxication.”Knightscope told ABC7, “It's a testament to the technology that police caught the aggressor and booked in him jail.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Building an app-centric Infrastructure Performance Monitoring system

Building an app-centric Infrastructure Performance Monitoring system

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.Applications are the lifeblood of any enterprise, but application performance can suffer without optimal support from the infrastructure teams. At the heart of this problem is the fact that application- and infrastructure-layer management stacks remain distinct entities across the IT environment.Application performance management (APM) drills down into the behavioral characteristics of the app and its supporting runtime environments, and perhaps select pieces of the virtual servers, but it is blind below the virtual machine. The underlying physical and virtual resources are managed and controlled by an infrastructure performance monitoring (IPM) system, which can effectively maintain the health of physical and virtual resources but doesn’t know whether this is producing an effective application environment in terms of either cost or performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Will Artificial Intelligence Change The World For the Better? Or Worse? Read our new policy paper

IDG Contributor Network: Zoomdata wants to scale out real-time data visualization

Zoomdata is a company that is all about helping organizations paint pretty pictures from their data. That might sound like a flippant description, but visualizations are actually an important part of surfacing insights and delivering them in a way that is actionable by the organization. Zoomdata is one of an increasing number of vendors that are filling a big gap in the marketplace.+ Also on Network World: Data visualization tools: The features users love and hate + You see, visualizations or data insights have historically been a product borne of the work of data analysts, utilizing data warehouses and rigid query approaches. This way of working was, arguably, OK in the past when organizational development cycles were slower and there was less of a critical imperative to innovate at speed. Today, however, time is of the essence, and these old-school approaches towards analysis simply don’t cut it any more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft to slash cloud-connection rights for stand-alone Office

Microsoft last week announced sweeping changes to Office's support rules, which will push more corporate customers to the Office 365 subscription model.The support policies introduced Thursday will cut in half the time that non-subscription versions of Office -- usually labeled "perpetual" as a nod to the licenses which, once purchased, let customers run the software as long as they want -- can connect to Microsoft cloud-based services. These include Microsoft-hosted Exchange email, the OneDrive for Business storage service and Skype for Business, the corporate edition of Microsoft's video-calling service.[ Further reading: Microsoft starts clock ticking on Office 2016's first upgrade ] Under the new rules, owners of perpetual-license versions of Office will be able to use those services only during the first half of their 10-year support lifecycle, the portion Microsoft dubs "mainstream." Currently, those customers may connect to cloud services such as Exchange mailboxes for the full decade of Microsoft's combined mainstream and "extended" support.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft .Net Core: Finally ready for prime time

It’s risky and often foolish to rush into a new software development framework, programming language, or technology platform too early in its lifecycle. Beyond the usual issues of too much hype and too little stability, new tech tends to lack staying power. You might end up investing precious time and effort into learning the ways of a tool that becomes abandoned or, worse, eliminated. It happens more often than you might think.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

FAQ: The real impact of Trump’s H-1B executive order

President Donald Trump is calling for "a long-overdue reform of H-1B visas." But what changes does he want, and can he get Congress to agree?Here's a look at some some of the key questions around Trump's visa reform effort and his "Hire American, Buy American" executive order.What's the most important thing that Trump wants to accomplish?In issuing his executive order, Trump called the "totally random" H-1B lottery "wrong." He wants the visas distributed to "the most-skilled and highest-paid" applicants. He wants to end "abuse."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How the U.S. is educating cybersecurity talent – and what’s still missing

It’s no secret that the world is facing a shortage of cybersecurity talent. The (ISC)² Center for Cyber Safety and Education’s 2017 Global Information Security Workforce study projects a deficit of over 1.8 million qualified cybersecurity professionals between now and 2022.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

12 free utilities that can give you more control over your PC

Tweak Windows to your willImage by Bet Noire / iStockThere are some very good reasons why you might want to peer behind the scenes of your Windows PC. Maybe you want to tweak your system to maximize performance, or maybe you just want to know what your computer is doing underneath those slick desktop graphics. Either way, here are 12 free programs you can use to fully monitor and manage your Windows experience.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Top IT hiring trends for recent grads

TEKsystems, a provider of IT staffing services, released the results of a survey highlighting the best IT jobs and key hiring trends for recent graduates. The survey asked more than 250 IT hiring managers across the U.S. what they're looking for in entry-level IT candidates and what the best opportunities are for graduates.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Why you need a systems reliability engineer

How can you ensure that the software and services you build today can deliver what your customers and consumers need in the future? If this is a question you think your organization should be asking, then you might need a systems reliability engineer (SRE). SREs are software engineers who focus on the reliability and uptime of applications and services not just in the short-term, but with a focus on scalability and long-term use.Sometimes referred to as "site reliability engineer," or "services reliability engineer," this engineering role is one that's finding its footing as DevOps practices take hold in IT departments, says Jason Hand, DevOps evangelist and incident and alerting specialist with VictorOps. The roles are most prevalent in cloud services, SaaS, PaaS and Iaas companies whose clients rely on them to keep those services available 24/7/365, he says. For organizations that rely on uptime, availability and reliability, an SRE is a logical talent add, as every minute of downtime chips away at the bottom line, Hand says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here