Latest Technology News

IT pros take more security risks than the average office worker

Risk dial

A whopping 93 percent of office workers engage in some form of unsafe online habits that could jeopardize their employer or their customers, a new report has shown.

The report, entitled 2015 Insider Risk Report, was done by Intermedia and it exposes the online security habits of more than 2,000 office workers in both the U.K. and the U.S.

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5 reasons not to buy Microsoft's Surface Book

There is no denying that the Surface Book is a great computer. There is no denying that a Ferrari is a great car either. Just because something is wonderful doesn't mean it can't have flaws, and it also doesn't mean it is necessarily worth the cost.

While I spent some time with the Surface Book laptop in a controlled press environment, I've yet to try one in the real world. With that said, there are too many compromises with Microsoft's flagship to make me actually want one. In fact, here are five specific reasons why you should not buy it.

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UK companies suffer from innovation inertia

Union flag keyboard

If businesses don't keep pace with digital innovation they're likely to lose out on opportunities for long term growth and risk being displaced by more agile competitors or road-blocked by security and compliance barriers.

Yet new research from Hitachi Data Systems suggests that a lack of consensus about where to make intelligent investments is leaving UK organizations in a state of 'innovation inertia' and putting business growth at risk.

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Online pharmacy caught selling consumer data to a lottery company

Everyone worries about online privacy to one extent or another. There's a lot of variation between the lackadaisical and the tin-foil hat brigade. The best place is usually somewhere in the middle, those who are cautious but don't go overboard. That can be difficult to balance when stories like this come along -- an online pharmacy turning over its customer info.

This happened in the United Kingdom and was investigated by the ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) which is in charge of protecting consumer rights in just these types of incidents.

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Polarr 3 is a versatile photo editor for Chrome

Polarr’s free online photo editor and mobile apps have generated a lot of interest this year, thanks to their well-judged mix of power and ease of use.

If you’ve not yet tried the editor for yourself, Polarr’s Chrome app is a great place to start.

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Digital services benchmark reveals winner and loser regions in global eCommerce

eCommerce

Digital services provide real-time indicators into buyer behavior and tend to reflect the overall health of global markets. Understanding these patterns gives online services companies the opportunity to redirect efforts to different regions or target their campaigns to where the opportunity is emerging.

Digital commerce solutions company Avangate today released findings from its first Digital Services Benchmark. The new report tracks global consumption of digital services to identify regions with the fastest growth and greatest contraction.

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EMC and VMware spin-off Virtustream cloud services business

EMC Corporation and VMware have announced plans to combine their respective cloud capabilities into a new cloud services business.

The new business will incorporate existing Virtustream cloud offerings and will be marketed under the Virtustream brand, which will be jointly owned by VMware and EMC and led by Virtustream CEO Rodney Rogers.

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How data is changing your life

Data analytics

Not so long ago collecting data required considerable effort. You had to measure and count things, then turn that raw information into useful data by inputting it into some sort of model. It was time consuming and took time to produce results.

Now there are millions of everyday devices collecting data, and lower storage costs mean that more of it can be retained and used to spot historical trends. This shift in how data is gathered, stored and analyzed is starting to have a significant effect.

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7 Android apps that have successfully adapted Material Design

Material Design -- the new(ish) design language introduced by Google in Android Lollipop, and inspired by 'paper and ink' -- aims to provide a unified experience irrespective of device fragmentation.

This was very much needed for a mobile first world, where the market for small screen devices (read wearables) is growing at a rapid pace.

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How business process outsourcing is evolving to a tech-enabled model driven by robotics [Q&A]

Service-based businesses, like those in healthcare, insurance, commercial real estate and financial services, among others, need to focus on growth and delivering quality customer service. However, back-end financial processes -- from billing and collections to vendor selection and accounting -- are also critical to business health. Firms face challenges in handling these tasks in an efficient, profitable manner. Too often, firms drain internal resources handling activity that doesn’t generate revenue (and in which they don’t specialize). The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market combines domain expertise in various fields with the resources and technology capabilities to assess and improve processes.

Xchanging is a business technology and services provider which focuses on delivering technology-enabled process services across finance and accounting, CRM and customer administration, and analytics. I spoke with Sean Allen, Xchanging's Vice President for Business Process Services, about how the BPO market is changing, and the new technology-based elements that are beginning to be incorporated.

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Machine learning solution helps to fight fraud

Fraud stop

Data is an essential part of combating and preventing fraud, but many organizations lack the data science and engineering teams needed to allow them to exploit the information they have effectively.

Big data company Feedzai is launching its new Data Science Studio software that uses artificially intelligent, machine-based learning to help prevent fraud.

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BlackBerry Priv will cost £580 in UK

BlackBerry’s Priv handset is arriving sooner than we thought, and in fact pre-orders are now live with Carphone Warehouse.

And as expected, the company’s new smartphone, which runs Android rather than BlackBerry OS, is priced at the premium end of the spectrum. The SIM-free version will set you back £580, and is available in just the one color -- black.

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Microsoft's new note-taking Android app works on the lockscreen

The new Microsoft is not afraid to try new things, as proven by the increasing number of experimental apps published by the team of developers at Microsoft Garage. Many of them were released on rival platforms first, and not on Windows or Windows Phone, and that is again the case with Parchi.

Parchi is an interesting new note-taking app that has made its debut on Android. What makes it noteworthy is the fact that it is designed to work on the lockscreen, unlike other offerings in this category -- like Microsoft's own OneNote or Evernote.

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Why Yahoo is worth less than nothing

A reader pointed out to me today that Yahoo, minus its Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stakes plus cash, is now worth less than nothing according to Wall Street. This says a lot about Yahoo but even more about Wall Street, since the core company is still profitable if in decline. If I were a trader (I’m not) that would argue Yahoo is a buy since there’s likely to be a future point at which the company will be free of those other riches and even Wall Street will be forced to give the carcass a positive value.

But when I heard about the negative value story the first thing that came to mind was something my old friend Joe Adler said long ago about one of my startups. "Your company is starting to have a stench of death about it", Joe said. And Joe was right.

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Western Digital acquires SanDisk in $19 billion deal

handshake

Data storage company Western Digital is acquiring another data storage company, SanDisk, thus creating a true behemoth in the industry.

According to Western Digital, it has to shell out $19 billion (£12.3bn) for the acquisition, which means SanDisk’s stock is worth $86.50 per share (£55.9).

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