Expect prices for PCs and mobile devices to rise this year

If you plan to buy a new PC or mobile device this year, you'll likely be shelling out more cash than in previous years. Prices are going up, and expensive devices are in demand.On average, the price of PCs and phones will go up by 2 percent this year, Gartner said in a research report released on Thursday. The calculations are based on U.S. dollars and average market sizes.Breaking those numbers down, PC prices are expected to go up 1.4 percent this year, while mobile phone prices will go up 4.3 percent.The prices will go up largely due to the rising prices of components. Also, more users are upgrading to more expensive and feature-rich mobile handsets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Online privacy meets abortion debate

The attorney general of Massachusetts has taken the abstraction of online privacy and brought it into  crystal clear focus by barring a Boston advertising agency from targeting anti-abortion ads at the cellphones of women the moment they arrive at reproductive health facilities.From a story in the Boston Globe: “You Have Choices,” one message said. Others offered “Pregnancy Help,’’ and assured recipients, “You’re Not Alone,” according to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who on Tuesday announced a legal action that alleged the ads illegally used consumer health data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Cloud failures can occur anywhere on the hype cycle

Cloud architecture has settled into its “plateau of productivity” phase in the hype cycle. It has gone through experimental adoption, irrational enthusiasm, and despondent disillusion. Does that mean cloud projects are more likely to succeed now? Good question. The answer depends on both the business and engineering side of the project.On the productivity plateau, the battle is over. Efficient implementations blithely pile up profits for the stakeholders. Stop! This is not exactly my experience as a software engineer and architect. Projects succeed and fail in every stage of the hype cycle. The predominant reasons for failure may change with the phase, but a more mature technology is no guarantee of success. An engineer builds systems to meet the stakeholders’ requirements. The hype cycle is perception and expectation, not requirements.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Openfabric: A Short Video of the IETF Presentation

The most current version of the draft can be found here. There is one more comment from Uma that still needs to be addressed, and one more section that needs to be added. There will probably be more changes, as well, over time. These sorts of drafts do not happen through one person; a number of folks have worked on various bits of the draft, including Shawn, Nikos, Ivan, Les, Naiming, Uma, and others—the folks who have added ideas, etc., are included in the contributors section, which is always worth paying attention to!

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US trade lobbying group attacked by suspected Chinese hackers

A group of what appears to be Chinese hackers infiltrated a U.S. trade-focused lobbying group as the two countries wrestle with how they treat imports of each other's goods and services.The APT10 Chinese hacking group appears to be behind a "strategic web compromise" in late February and early March at the National Foreign Trade Council, according to security vendor Fidelis Cybersecurity.The NFTC lobbies for open and fair trade and has pledged to work with U.S. President Donald Trump to "find ways to address Chinese policies that frustrate access to their market and undermine fair trade, while at the same time encouraging a positive trend in our trade relationship." Trump will meet with China President Xi Jinping in Florida this week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US trade lobbying group attacked by suspected Chinese hackers

A group of what appears to be Chinese hackers infiltrated a U.S. trade-focused lobbying group as the two countries wrestle with how they treat imports of each other's goods and services.The APT10 Chinese hacking group appears to be behind a "strategic web compromise" in late February and early March at the National Foreign Trade Council, according to security vendor Fidelis Cybersecurity.The NFTC lobbies for open and fair trade and has pledged to work with U.S. President Donald Trump to "find ways to address Chinese policies that frustrate access to their market and undermine fair trade, while at the same time encouraging a positive trend in our trade relationship." Trump will meet with China President Xi Jinping in Florida this week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 reasons developers love containers

Linux containers have been around for almost a decade, but it was only with the release of Docker four years ago that large numbers of developers began to adopt the technology.  Now it seems that containers are everywhere and their popularity continues to rise.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Tableau switches to subscription pricing for its BI products

Tableau is making a big change in the way it sells its business intelligence products. The company announced Thursday that all of its software will be available as a subscription, rather than a single license plus a service fee.Businesses will need to pay $70 per user per month for a license of Tableau Desktop Professional, and $35 per user per month for Tableau Server. That compares to the company’s boxed software prices of $2000 for Desktop, plus a $400 annual renewal fee for software updates, and $800 for Server, plus a $200 annual fee.It’s a move that will provide additional flexibility, scalability and risk mitigation for Tableau customers, according to Francois Ajenstat, the company’s chief product officer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How a trucking company sped up mobile app development

Employees want access to business applications from mobile devices, which is a conundrum for CIOs: Do they adapt legacy software designed to run on desktops and laptops to run on smartphones and tablets or buy a platform that enables such portability with minimal coding? Trucking conglomerate Paccar chose the latter option to help deliver mobile applications across the company’s DAF, Peterbilt, Leyland and Kenworth business units, says CIO Lily Ley. Paccar Paccar's CIO Lily Ley.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows 3.1: Twenty-five years later, it’s still a Microsoft milestone

Happy Birthday, Windows 3.1Imagine a world without the Start button. No, I'm not talking about Windows 8. Dig deep into your memory, and you may recall a time when Windows 3.1 ruled the Earth.Twenty-five years ago this month, Microsoft released version 3.1 of its MS-DOS graphical-shell-turned-operating-system. Windows 3.1 became the first version of Windows to be widely distributed with new PCs, cementing the dominance of Microsoft's OS on the IBM PC platform and signaling the dawn of the Golden Age of Windows.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco targets digital business transformation with new certifications

Cisco has rolled out new certifications and training for networking professionals looking to bolster their digital networking skillsets.“The workforce is changing and needs to evolve to handle a more software-centric, automated digital ecosystem,” Tejas Vashi, senior director, product strategy and marketing for Learning@Cisco.+More on Network World: Cisco issues variety of security warnings on wireless gear+Vashi said the digital network requires new skills and network engineers need to adapt to rapidly evolving technologies in analytics, software-defined networking, mobility, security and virtualization and cloud services. Traditional hardware-centric, manually configured networking models will be unable to scale and keep pace of digital businesses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 3 things CIOs need to know about tech talent

With demand for technology talent increasing and IT facing competition for the best people from vendors, startups, and even other functions within their own companies, a tight labor market is quickly moving up the list of CIO challenges. They know that the best strategies for digital transformation will amount to nothing if they don’t have the right talent to implement them.But before IT leaders change their talent strategies, they need to understand what IT employees want and expect from their job. Recent findings from CEB’s Global Talent Monitor reveal three facts about IT staff and the way they think about compensation, job opportunities and personal development (Disclosure: I am employed by CEB).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: A Case to Further Registrar Self Regulation

In most industries, businesses that blatantly act against the interests of their customers to favor their own internal profit centers would either not be allowed or else subject to controls and oversight by the government. It is universally regarded as an unfair and deceptive business practice. In the domain name registrar business, however, the normal practices of legitimate business dealings and customer protection seem woefully wanting. Kelly’s Case described here illustrates the point, and it provides the opportunity for ICANN to demonstrate it can be responsive to egregious registrar behavior without government agencies or juridical bodies becoming engaged. —CircleID

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Get a $20 Discount If You Buy 3 Echo Dots on Amazon, For A Limited Time – Deal Alert

Alexa in every room? Get 3 Echo Dots for less than the price of one Amazon Echo, and save $20 on top with this limited time deal. Echo Dot is a hands-free, voice-controlled device that uses Alexa to play music, control smart home devices, provide information, read the news, set alarms, read audiobooks from Audible, and more. In fact, new Alexa "skills" are being created all the time. Amazon has quietly published a special code that will apply a $20 discount when you buy 3 Echo Dots -- good until 4/25 only. Just put them in your cart and apply the code DOT3PACK to activate this deal. If you're in the market for a few Dots, jump over to Amazon and claim your discount while it lasts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Xeon E3: A Lesson In Moore’s Law And Dennard Scaling

If you want an object lesson in the interplay between Moore’s Law, Dennard scaling, and the desire to make money from selling chips, you need look no further than the past several years of Intel’s Xeon E3 server chip product lines.

The Xeon E3 chips are illustrative particularly because Intel has kept the core count constant for these processors, which are used in a variety of gear, from workstations (remote and local), entry servers to storage controllers to microservers employed at hyperscalers and even for certain HPC workloads (like Intel’s own massive EDA chip design and validation farms). …

Xeon E3: A Lesson In Moore’s Law And Dennard Scaling was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

F-Secure buys Little Flocker to combat macOS ransomware

With attacks against Mac users growing in number and sophistication, endpoint security vendor F-Secure has decided to acquire Little Flocker, a macOS application that provides behavior-based protection against ransomware and other malicious programs.Little Flocker can be used to enforce strict access controls to a Mac's files and directories as well as its webcam, microphone and other resources. It's particularly effective against ransomware, spyware, computer Trojans and other malicious programs that attempt to steal, encrypt or destroy files.F-Secure plans to integrate Little Flocker, which it calls "the most advanced security technology available for Macs," into its new Xfence technology. Xfence is designed to  add behavioral-based protection to its existing endpoint security products for macOS.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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