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Showing posts from 2018

5G Will Make PCs And Smartphones Obsolete

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While 5G will reach critical mass in developed countries by mid-to-late 2019, it will not be until 2020 or beyond when it is so common you can depend on it being everyplace you need it to be. This last step is a critical one: we will have to reconsider where apps run and begin to rethink what apps do. 5G will change what we consider a mobile platform to be because the OS will move as well. It is interesting to note that when Steve Jobs first conceived of the iPhone, he thought all the apps would exist in the Cloud and not run locally. With 5G we get to see a moment where it looks like Apple was first with the concept, but others will get it right first. This is because Apple is expected to be a year late with 5G and the Cloud currently is dominated by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. As Jobs envisioned, if you can push everything into the Cloud, you get a number of potential advantages: such as nearly unlimited processing power, offline upgrades and patches that are completely man

Data Analytics Efforts Remain Work in Progress

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Data analytics remain a work in progress. While the majority of organizations recognize the benefits of analytics initiatives, most have yet to maximize these advantages, according to a recent survey from Snowflake Computing, MicroStrategy, Wipro, and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. Relatively few companies are effectively embedding data/analytics into all business decision making. What’s more, organizations are still struggling to deliver actionable intelligence to their employees. Over 700 business leaders took part in the research. The following slide show  from eWeek, presents highlights, with charts provided courtesy of Harvard Business Review Analytic Services and the three sponsoring IT companies. A "must read" for everyone involved with analytics in their organization.

4.5 Billion Data Records Compromised

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According to digital security company Gemalto's 2018 Breach Level Index Report, more than 4.5 billion data records were compromised in the first half of this year, a 133 percent increase over last year. That equals more than 25 million data records lost or stolen per day, one-million every hour, over 17,000 every minute, and 291 every second. Not surprising is that the number one source of data breaches was "malicious outside actors," meaning external attackers. Those attacks encompassed more than 3.6 billion data records, or 80 percent of the total from the first half of 2018. The second most frequent cause of compromised data was accidental, which dropped by 47 percent from over 1.6 billion records in the 2017 report to 879 million in 2018. Human mistakes still accounted for 318 out of the 945 total incidents reported this year. Next, 7 percent of data breaches were the result of malicious insiders stealing information from a company, and 2 percent of breaches w

Samsung 8K TV Introduced at IFA

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If you are planning to buy a new TV in 2018, 4K has replaced 1080p as the industry standard. 4K content is being streamed and readily available on disc. Prices of 4K TVs continue to fall. Last week however, Samsung introduced a new 8K TV line at the IFA trade show in Berlin. The Q900R QLED 8K will be offered in 65-inch, 75-inch, 82-inch, and 85-inch sizes complete with "Real 8K Resolution." What this means is you are getting a TV with four-times more pixels than 4K or 16-times more than HD. Samsung is using artificial intelligence and a dedicated chip to offer 8K-quality upscaling. Each Q900R TV includes a dedicated chip to handle content upscaling coupled with proprietary AI. Samsung claims that this combination allows it to enhance lower resolution content up to the point where it is 8K quality. Even though you may be watching a 4K Blu-Ray disc, it will appear as 8K on the screen. The Q900R offers a brightness of 4,000 nits and supports the HDR10+ standard for enhanced hi

Russian Troll Farm Just the Tip of a Misinformation Iceberg

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Chloe Albanesius writing in PC Magazine explains the circumstances surrounding the "Russian Hacking” scandal quite well. We've all heard a lot about the Internet Research Agency and Russian hacking, but security and social media experts tell the Senate Intelligence Committee that the IRA is only the beginning. The activity of the Internet Research Agency (IRA) is just the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to Russia's hacking and disinformation efforts, security and social media experts told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, August 1. The GRU, Russia's intelligence agency, is "probably better at hiding their tracks than the IRA is, and I think that [suggests] this is probably just one tip of the iceberg of what we're looking at," said Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, who pointed to IRA efforts on Reddit and Tumblr, in addition to Facebook and Twitter. Senators quizzed the witnesses—who also

WPA3 Can Boost Your Organization's Wireless Security

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The Wi-Fi Alliance has begun certifying wireless devices that meet the new WPA3 standard to make wireless communications more secure and easier to manage. The transition should be fairly straightforward, although for many businesses it’ll mean having to buy new access hardware. At this point, only Cisco has said that current systems will be updated to support WPA3. “Cisco is committed to integrating WPA3 features into our Aironet Access Points and Wireless Controllers via a firmware upgrade so that our existing and new customers can take advantage of the capabilities offered by WPA3,” said Greg Dorai, vice president for Cisco WLAN. A number of other wireless vendors, including Aerohive, Arris, Aruba, Broadcom, Intel and Qualcomm, have stated they’re going to start building products that support the WPA3 standard. However, actual products with support for WPA3 won’t appear on the market until late 2018 or 2019. Once WPA3 infrastructure products begin appearing, the first steps will

Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm Introduce New Multi-Core Processors at Computex

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The PC market has been the focus of chip mmanufacturers at the Computex tech show in Taipei this week, with both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices promising significant boosts in core count in upcoming processors and Qualcomm unveiling a new chip aimed at Windows 10 Always Connected PCs. At the show, Gregory Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Client Computing Group, introduced two chips in the company’s eighth-generation Core processor family, the Lake U Series for midrange and high-end laptops and Amber Lake Series for ultra-thin laptops and tablets. Intel featured new chips for desktop PCs, including a 28-core processor that can run at 5GHz and that will surpass the current 18-core Core i9 chip. It’s due to come to market in the fourth quarter. Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s Computing and Graphics Business Group, announced the next generation of the company’s Ryzen Threadripper high-end chip based on the Zen architectur

Python for Business Majors?

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Python has become the programming language of choice for many businesses. Colleges and Universities are rapidly designing courses to teach Python to meet the growing demand. Marian University will be offering a class in Python, CST 280, this Fall. This course is designed primarily for Management and Business Analytics majors. Previously, our Business students took courses in C++ and JavaScript. Our Computer Science and Engineering programs will continue to require C++ and offer Python as an elective. Christine Spang of SD Times has written an excellent article on What to Expect for Python . Below are some excerpts from her column: “Python has grown significantly in popularity since its initial release in 1991. The open source language now consistently ranks among the world’s most popular programming languages, having overcome those who claimed it was too slow or couldn’t scale. In fact, these days, leaders such as PayPal, Instagram and Yelp use Python as part of their core softwa

2018 Billionaire's Challenge

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This week the BUS 350 Operations Management class had its annual Billionaire's Challenge and the winner was: Hannah Mummert $2,152,222,222

Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine-Learning Platforms

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Data science and machine-learning platforms enable organizations to take an end-to-end approach to building and deploying data science models. This Magic Quadrant evaluates 16 vendors to help you identify the right one for your organization's needs. This Magic Quadrant evaluates vendors of data science and machine-learning platforms. These are software products that data scientists use to help them develop and deploy their own data science and machine-learning solutions. More precisely, Gartner defines a data science and machine-learning platform as: A cohesive software application that offers a mixture of basic building blocks essential both for creating many kinds of data science solution and incorporating such solutions into business processes, surrounding infrastructure and products. Machine learning is a popular subset of data science that warrants specific attention when evaluating these platforms. Cohesiveness is an important attribute of a data science and machine-le

"C" The Programming Language Of The Year

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According to the February issue of SD Times . The “C” programming language has made a comeback. In fact it has been declared the “programming language of the year” by the TIOBE Index. It was reported last month that the general-purpose programming language and Kotlin were the top competitors for TIOBE’s 2017 award. The TIOBE Index measures popularity of programming languages, and is updated once a month. While C has held one of the top positions on the TIOBE Programming Community Index over the last several years, it has come a long way. In 2016, the index revealed that interest in C was plummeting as it struggled to compete against the web and mobile development world. Despite all this, it is remarkable to see that C is getting more popular after a steep downward trend that started at the end of 2015. C had a rating of more than 17% at that time and lost more than 10% after that during the next 18 months. A possible reason for this revival is that C is very popular in the growing

Becoming a Global IT Leader

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According to the latest issue of CIO magazine, as organizations expand to new locations around the world, a growing number of IT leaders are finding themselves collaborating with colleagues, staff and business partners in places with drastically different personal, work and ethics practices. The following is a review of the main points of this excellent article: "IT professionals must be prepared to drive innovation in today’s globally interconnected markets," says Sandra Smith, director of Brown University's IT Leadership Program. "To this end, they need transferable leadership skills effective across all markets, industry and cultures." A successful global IT leader can come from any background, notes Doug Bordonaro, chief data evangelist at analytics developer ThoughtSpot, where he works with numerous Global 500 companies. Ultimately the most successful business people have three core traits: respect for foreign cultures, a skill that is in demand, and