Hey Alexa, what are your competitors doing?

Internet-connected intelligent gizmos had a big showing at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, and there is one common thread between many ofthem: Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant.Lenovo has a new speaker featuring the assistant. Volkswagen and Ford are building Alexa into their cars. Plus, there’s a whole flotilla of other connected devices featuring Alexa, including a high-tech refrigerator from LG.That’s not to say other virtual assistants aren’t doing the same thing, but Amazon is the clear winner by volume at CES.So, what does that mean for the virtual assistant market, which includes competitors such as Microsoft's Cortana, the Google Assistant and Apple's Siri? To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US: Putin ordered cyber-meddling to favor Trump

A highly anticipated U.S. intelligence report claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to covertly influence last year’s presidential election in favor for Donald Trump.However, the report – or at least the declassified version – offered no new evidence or sources to prove the Kremlin’s role in sponsoring the effort, which included hacks and online propaganda.The U.S. government published the 25-page document on Friday amid skepticism from incoming President-elect Trump over whether Russia was really involved.Outgoing President Barack Obama has nevertheless ordered sanctions against Russia and threatened covert action in retaliation for the cyber-meddling.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US: Putin ordered cyber-meddling to favor Trump

A highly anticipated U.S. intelligence report claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to covertly influence last year’s presidential election in favor for Donald Trump.However, the report – or at least the declassified version – offered no new evidence or sources to prove the Kremlin’s role in sponsoring the effort, which included hacks and online propaganda.The U.S. government published the 25-page document on Friday amid skepticism from incoming President-elect Trump over whether Russia was really involved.Outgoing President Barack Obama has nevertheless ordered sanctions against Russia and threatened covert action in retaliation for the cyber-meddling.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump mum on Russia blame after US intelligence briefing

After meeting with U.S. intelligence leaders on Friday, President-elect Donald Trump withheld any direct endorsement of their findings that Russia tried to meddle with the recent election.Rather, he focused on whether the hacking efforts -- from any country -- had an effect on the election’s outcome. In his view, there was “absolutely” none."While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election," Trump said in a statement. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump mum on Russia blame after US intelligence briefing

After meeting with U.S. intelligence leaders on Friday, President-elect Donald Trump withheld any direct endorsement of their findings that Russia tried to meddle with the recent election.Rather, he focused on whether the hacking efforts -- from any country -- had an effect on the election’s outcome. In his view, there was “absolutely” none."While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election," Trump said in a statement. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s OS supremacy over Apple to end in 2017

Apple will steal a march on Microsoft this year when for the first time this century shipments of devices powered by its operating systems outnumber those running Windows, research firm Gartner said today.In 2017, Apple's combination of iOS and macOS -- the former on iPhones and iPads, the latter on Macs -- will take second place from Windows on the devices shipped during the year. The gap between the two will widen in 2018 and 2019, with Apple ahead of Microsoft both years.According to Gartner, which provided Computerworld with its latest device shipment forecast broken out by operating system, in 2016 Windows powered about 260 million devices of the 2.3 billion shipped during the year. Windows accounted for approximately 11.2% of the total devices, which overwhelmingly ran Google's Android.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wandera helps manage the risks a mobile fleet poses to corporate data  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  The 2016 holiday shopping season is barely in the rearview mirror and already the retail analysts are claiming that sales via mobile devices hit a new all-time high. According to Google Analytics data, 30% of all online shopping now happens on mobile devices.That’s good news for e-commerce companies—assuming they provide shoppers with a secure application that isn’t leaking sensitive information such as user credentials and financial transaction data. How long will it be before we hear of a significant data breach due to a poorly secured mobile app?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intel’s Optane: What users can expect in PCs and when it will ship

Intel is known for cranking up PC speeds to new highs, and it's doing the same for storage with the super fast Optane.Optane, which Intel claims will replace today's SSDs and DRAM, is exciting for many reasons. Game play, PC booting, and productivity applications will be much faster with the new class of storage and memory.Intel has said Optane could be up to 10 times faster than conventional SSDs, but real-world tests on the storage have yet to be done. The first Optane storage was announced at CES, but it's only in the form of low-capacity 16GB and 32GB units to be used as cache and not as primary storage.The initial Optanes will not have a meaty capacity, but it will be a good start to test and play with the storage, said Pat Kannar, marketing director for Precision desktops at Dell.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: Dell’s new Kaby Lake XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop amazes

Back in May of 2016, I reviewed the (then current) Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop. At just a bit over $2,000 it wasn’t the world’s cheapest machine, but for a Linux user looking for a high-end (but very portable) notebook, that XPS proved to be a remarkable rig. Well, Dell has a new model of the XPS Developer Edition. And I pestered them until they sent me one to test. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT service providers increase investment in onshore locations

The global sourcing industry has seen a surge in setup activity in onshore location in recent years, according to outsourcing consultancy and research firm Everest Group.[ Related: Grading our 2016 IT outsourcing predictions ]After seeing significant declines in onshore location expansion in 2013 and 2014 due to a global slowdown, the percentage of new onshore versus offshore delivery locations among the top 20 service providers rose from 45 percent in 2014 to 52 percent during 2015 and the first half of 2016, according to Everest Group. That brings the proportion of onshore locations to an unprecedented high in the industry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s profit slump means a pay cut for Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook's total compensation took a dive for 2016, as the company missed its financial targets for the year.The company's earnings for the year to Sept. 24 dropped 14 percent compared to a year earlier.As a result, Cook's total compensation dropped 15 percent -- despite a 50 percent rise in base salary.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD Tech's biggest CEO raises and pay cuts +He certainly won't have to start eating ramen noodles -- he made US$8,747,719, after all -- but he and fellow senior executives lost out on a few million each because of the poor performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

More than 10,000 exposed MongoDB databases deleted by ransomware groups

Groups of attackers have adopted a new tactic that involves deleting publicly exposed MongoDB databases and asking for money to restore them. In a matter of days, the number of affected databases has risen from hundreds to more than 10,000.The issue of misconfigured MongoDB installations, allowing anyone on the internet to access sensitive data, is not new. Researchers have been finding such open databases for years, and the latest estimate puts their number at more than 99,000.On Monday, security researcher Victor Gevers from the GDI Foundation reported that he found almost 200 instances of publicly exposed MongoDB databases that had been wiped and held to ransom by an attacker or a group of attackers named Harak1r1.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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