Google and Avaya are chasing companies seeking to install or upgrade call center systems, promising them easier and more affordable deployments via Chromebooks and a WebRTC interface to the Avaya customer support software. The integrated systems would let customer-support reps access the Avaya call center software—hosted in the cloud or …
When the anticipated tsunami of data from the Internet of Things hits the enterprise, FoundationDB’s flagship NoSQL database should be ready to handle to deluge. The company has re-architectured its FoundationDB Key-Value Store to handle a significantly larger amount of data, which IoT sensors will no doubt soon generate and …
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against a Buffalo, N.Y.-based investment advisory firm and two co-owners accused of making false and misleading statements to clients when recommending investments in a risky hedge fund. The hedge fund’s portfolio manager agreed to settle similar charges. The SEC’s Enforcement Division …
DevOps at its heart leads to continual improvement in software through continuous deployment: develop, deploy, and repeat. But continuous deployment requires lots of changes to that software on a weekly or even daily basis. As you well know, change can be the enemy of security. To read this article in …
I’m somewhat paranoid about backing up my data files. And by “somewhat paranoid,” I mean “petrified.” If you’re not of a similar mindset, you should be. Consider what it would mean to lose some irreplaceable photos, for instance. Or the please-let-me-keep-my-job presentation that you’ve been pulling together for months. Or …
With this December Patch Tuesday, we see a smaller number of patches than expected, with three updates rated as critical and four patches that Microsoft has rated as important. This month, we also see the much delayed Microsoft Exchange update (MS14-075) released as part of the December cycle. Historically speaking, …
For businesses and consumers alike, the Internet of Things is helping create smarter, more efficient devices. For enterprise IT and security professionals, it’s also creating a headache. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here (Insider Story) …
Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated and collaborative with every coming year. To combat the threat in 2015, information security professionals must understand these five trends. (cio.com) To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here …
Ghana’s plan to remove import duties on smartphones, a move other African nations have contemplated, will help indigenous companies that are “playing by the rules,” according to a top executive for RLG, which makes laptops, desktops and mobile phones. RLG, which has its global headquarters in Dubai, runs phone assembly …
Finnish company Jolla is following through on a promise to add more features to its Linux-based Sailfish OS, with plans to offer more personalization and a feature called “Events” that will show messages, calendar events and other information on the screen at once. Since its inception in 2011, Jolla has …
Vulnerabilities with catchy nicknames get more attention from media, customers, and vendors and so get patched more thoroughly than similar vulnerabilities without clever names. According to a report released Tuesday by security researcher Secunia ApS, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, names such as Heartbleed, Shellshock and Poodle make it easier for …
When NASA’s new spacecraft, Orion, made its maiden voyage last week, it completed its successful 4.5-hour trip running on a 12-year-old processor and a computer that’s far from state-of-the-art. So how did NASA’s engineers make this old technology work for them in the rigors of space? Testing. Testing. Testing. “It …
As it faces down a litigious assault from rival Cisco, Arista Networks is enhancing its switch operating system to expedite DevOps deployments. Arista this week unveiled EOS+, a version of the operating system with deeper programmability and pre-integrated applications for customizing the network and tightening its alignment with the workloads …
Not surprisingly, Apple yesterday fought a move by several news organizations to make public a two-hour video deposition recorded by former co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011. In its rebuttal to a motion filed earlier in the week by the Associated Press, Bloomberg and CNN, Apple’s lawyers argued that releasing the …
SAN JOSE — By the end of 2015, all of Cisco’s Catalyst 6500 data center customers will have deployed the company’s new Nexus 9000 switch. That’s not to say they will have retired all of their Catalyst 6500s, according to Rob Soderbery, Cisco senior vice president of enterprise products and …
Uber has been hit with a lawsuit by the district attorneys for Los Angeles and San Francisco that accuses it of misleading consumers over its background checks on drivers and could lead to millions of dollars in fines. The DA’s have also entered into a settlement agreement with rival service …
ralphbaer.com Long before the Xbox came the Brown Box, a creation that defense contractor engineer Ralph Baer and colleagues built in the late 1960s that would become known as the first real video game system. The video game industry this week mourns Baer, a German-born American who has passed away …
Arista Networks’ stock took it on the chin when Cisco slapped the company with patent infringement and copyright law suits last Friday, losing almost 20% of its value at one point as investors and others mulled the long term implications of the suits. The short answer: this is going to …
When the security-focused Blackphone started shipping in June the phone came with a lot of limitations. Nowhere was that more apparent than with third-party apps, which could end up crashing due to a user’s privacy preferences. Blackphone, the company, will look to improve that situation in January when the company …
When it comes to battling sophisticated cyber attacks, Chief Information Security Officers feel well outgunned by the seedy underside of the Internet intent on wrecking havoc on their enterprise environments. IBM’s third annual Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) study of 138 security executives found that 60% said their organizations are …
The Securities and Exchange Commission today penalized Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC for violating the market access rule when it failed to uphold credit limits for a customer firm with a rogue trader who engaged in fraudulent trading of Apple stock. The market access rule requires broker-dealers to have adequate …
Apple has named Elevate, a set of brain training games, and Threes!, an addictive numbers game, as its top 2014 app and game, respectively. Elevate Elevate Brain Training app Elevate is a free (with in-app purchases) brain training program from Elevate Labs that the app maker says was “designed in collaboration with …
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is getting a seriously early jump on its 2015 commencement exercises, naming U.S. CTO and MIT alum Megan Smith as its speaker for the June 5 event. Smith, who has undergraduate (1986) and master’s (1988) degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT, was named by President …
The release Tuesday of the U.S. Senate’s report that excoriated the Central Intelligence Agency for torturing suspected terrorists will result in retaliation by cyber-hacktivist groups, a security expert predicted today. “I expect there will be some sort of retribution,” said Tom Chapman, director of cyber operations at Edgewave, a San …
One of the most persistent ideas I’ve heard in my decades in IT is that we geeks want democracy at work. Surprisingly, I’ve heard it from managers and executives as often as I have from front-line geeks. But when you scratch the surface, you see that we don’t really want …
Thou shalt not use coffee DRM! I don’t know about you, but I’m not a morning person. Please do not present me with a problem or other drama first thing in the morning because I have zero, zippy, negative, none in the brain functioning department until I’ve had coffee. Since …