How full-text search engines improve productivity at work
Entering the era of private space travel, you’d think that even if the rest of us can’t yet launch into orbit, at the very least we could make our lives easier through instant search across terabytes of up-to-date enterprise data from any place we may happen to visit on this planet. The good news is, with enterprise search software and a search index, we can make Earth that much more habitable while we await own spacecraft.
Now you may look up at the stars and wonder: what is a search index? A search index is not like the type of index you’d find at the end of a large book. Instead, it is simply an internal tool for storing each unique word and each unique number across an enterprise dataset, and the locations of all words and numbers in the data. The sole purpose of the search index is for the search engine to comprehensively search across everything, processing as many search requests as come in at any one time.
Despite the headlines, there's no need to feel hopeless about cybersecurity
The recent Colonial Pipeline attack set off gasoline panic-buying on America’s East Coast and reportedly cost the company $90 million in ransom. An adversarial nation’s Sunburst hack penetrated major U.S. corporations and key government agencies with repercussions yet unknown. Looking at these and other incidents, friends and customers have asked me, "What’s the use? Why bother? If these powerful organizations can be held for ransom or lose key data, what chance does my organization have to defend itself?"
I understand the feelings of helplessness behind the question. It can sometimes seem cybersecurity experts are preaching fire safety while all around us the house is burning down.
Supply network mapping more important than ever
Supply chains have been mapped for forever, but now technology is being increasingly involved in network mapping. Supply chains are evolving due to factors around them which might be political, economic, production-based, or, as seen this year, because of a pandemic. Covid-19 exposed the fragility of many modern supply chains with businesses relying on imports from different countries at a time when manufacturing was decreasing.
Within the wines and spirits industry companies across the world are scaling up their production, streamlining their supply chains, and expanding globally to become more efficient with their suppliers. It’s more important than ever to have an understanding of where everything comes from. You only have to look at the 2013 horse meat scandal to see why knowing your product’s origins is vital.
Why a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to data classification won't deliver in an era of enhanced regulation
In 2018 the European GDPR irrevocably changed the whole data privacy landscape. Since it was implemented there have been a host of other privacy regulations such as CCPA, CMMC, and India PDP, coming into force around the world. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago the Colorado Governor signed the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) into law, the latest in the recent wave of state privacy legislation in the US and unlikely to be the last. The CPA will take effect July 1, 2023, six months after Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA) and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) become effective.
Following the implementation of such data protection and privacy regulations, there have been plenty of high-profile cases and fines issued. This further underpins the need to ensure sensitive information is handled in the correct manner and reinforces that this is a government requirement that organizations can no longer ignore. For example, just this month British Airways settled a legal claim from some of the 420,000 people affected by a major 2018 data breach. The breach affected both customers and BA staff and included names, addresses, and payment-card details. The UK Information Commissioner's Office handed BA its largest fine to date -- £20m -- over the "unacceptable" failure to protect customers.
Small companies make good targets for cybercriminals
"Cybersecurity doesn’t apply to me because my business is too small to matter", and "Cybercriminals would never bother hacking us because we don’t have valuable data or many financial assets."
If these comments sound familiar, that’s because it is unfortunately the view held by a large majority of the SMB community. Small to medium sized businesses are slowly jumping on the cybersecurity bandwagon, but must first leave this 'it would never happen to me' mentality behind.
Why proactive cybersecurity means focusing on people
Today’s work environment is radically different from that of just 16 months ago. COVID-19 has created a permanent state of hybrid or fully remote work, which, yes, brings a number of benefits, but it also increases employee stress, reduces their attention span, and creates a chasm between them and their internal security team.
We’re living in the new world order, which compounds and amplifies the threats from what have historically been the three most common security incident reasons -- people getting hacked, people making mistakes, and people breaking rules. Not being proactive about potential insider threats almost guarantees an organization that hasn’t been hacked will be doomed to join the many big-name brands that have found themselves having to pay ransom for access to their systems.
Where do chatbots and virtual assistants feature in the future of healthcare?
The onset of COVID-19 has altered the way hospitals, establishments and companies functioned and the need to limit physical interactions has made it difficult for certain entities to cope. One of the worst affected industries has been the global healthcare sector, which lay at the forefront of the pandemic. The seismic increase in patient volumes directly translated into the multiplication of operations and patient care-related work. It became evident that hospitals were not equipped with the right tools or devices to handle the onslaught.
Despite boosting hiring practices and increasing personnel, healthcare providers spread across 66 percent of the globe have stated that the workforce shortage is a leading driver of service disruptions in the healthcare industry, according to research by the World Health Organisation. Apart from treatment and pathology, a significant portion of the patient care journey comprises routine tasks laden with redundancies. Patient form-filling, EHR retrieval/updating, patient insurance filing, report generation, follow-up booking, patient scheduling etc., are regular day-to-day tasks that have drastically risen in volume, leading to bottlenecks. A study by the National Library of Medicine revealed that doctors spent 33 percent of their time on these types of front-desk operations instead of pathology and treatment.
Protect cloud-native data with cloud-native backup and recovery software
Cloud-native applications are rapidly being deployed in full production. To manage cloud-native data, organizations are turning to Kubernetes-friendly storage platforms.
However, with these apps supporting real-world use cases, organizations need to plan beyond general data storage by deploying cloud-native backup and recovery software to protect these key applications and their data.
Building better resiliency: Why DRaaS and BaaS?
As cases of ransomware continue to proliferate the news, many CEOs are approaching their CTOs and CSOs, asking, "What should we be doing?" When it comes to ransomware threats, it’s not if an attack will happen, but when -- and when again.
Proper threat mitigation for your business involves a two-pronged approach: preventative and restorative efforts. But far too often businesses are prioritizing their preventative measures instead of giving adequate attention to the restorative side of the equation -- which ransomware cybercriminals exploit. For example, in a recent Pulse Study on IT executives’ perceptions of managed resiliency, 32 percent of respondents claimed to favor preventative measures over restorative measures.
Five ways 5G will impact hotels with the rise of the contactless era
Companies operating in the hotel and hospitality industry face strong competition from rivals when attempting to attract customers. The past 18 months have been difficult for the industry as well as the country as a whole. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the population is beginning to travel more extensively again, presenting an excellent opportunity to stimulate interest in a particular hotel destination.
The features and amenities a hotel offers can be the difference between serving satisfied guests who will happily return and disgruntled customers who are already looking for an alternative for their next trip. One of the features that a majority of travelers expect is connectivity for their mobile devices. Hotels that do not offer robust connectivity will not live up to the expectations of the majority of their customers.
How to finally meet your cost objectives in the cloud
Migrating to the cloud offers many benefits for an organization, including increased efficiency, security and stability for many technology functions. But once an organization has made the move to the cloud, it’s critical to keep a close eye on ongoing costs. According to a recent Pulse/InterVision study, 92 percent of technology leaders and executives say their organizations expect technology teams to operate with a cloud-first approach, but 45 percent were either unsure about or not meeting their cost objectives in the cloud.
Skepticism towards the cloud will only continue to increase if costs cannot be controlled. To avoid this unfortunate trend, businesses should have certain tools in their arsenals like AWS and a trusted strategic service provider.
Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac is here with support for Windows 11 and macOS Monterey
Virtualization software Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac is now available, and the latest update brings with it a host of important changes and additions. Among the highlights of the latest version is full support for not only Windows 11, but also macOS Monterey. Both of these operating systems have yet to be released, but Parallels is ready for them, meaning eager testers can get on and try them out.
Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac also boasts support for Apple's M1 chip as well as more traditional Intel-based platforms. The update also sees huge performance improvements with an improved gaming experience and better USB support.
Launching a new product in an existing market: What you need to know
No matter the timeline, no matter the market, launching a new product is never easy. Even the most innovative companies look for ways around the challenges that they face when developing and introducing new products. If you’re launching a new product in an existing market, it’s tempting to rely on your existing code and infrastructure. Building on existing projects, though, might have unforeseen drawbacks.
There are two significant factors that can hamstring innovation and creation. First, building toward an audience of existing customers can mire new thinking and possibilities. Second, using a code base from an existing product can close doors that designers didn’t know existed in the first place. If you rely on existing products, development of your new project could be slowed to a crawl, as the old or existing code can stifle the flexibility needed for the new product and limit creativity.
Is AI actually you?
This seems like a great time to ask this question, as it might not matter soon. With the direction things are heading, we may soon arrive at an intersection where the blurring of identity reality and identity fiction is so extreme that we’ll simply stop asking what is authentic personhood.
Case in point, a story out of Paris in July outlines not a dystopian future, but a troubling present reality. The piece recounts the story of computer-generated YouTube storytime videos. The genre is pretty much what it sounds like:
Tackling the cyber threat to manufacturing businesses
The manufacturing industry has become a major target for ransomware attacks. The reason is simple: if criminals can cripple the operational technology that controls the manufacturing plant, a company will rapidly come to its knees. With no product to sell, any company will fear for its existence -- and with that fear, the criminals believe any manufacturing company will be more likely to pay a sizable ransom to stay in business. Sophisticated cyber criminals understand this. They choose and research their targets and set their ransom to the maximum amount they believe the company can afford to pay.
For many years, the manufacturing industry didn’t worry about cyber threats. Its operational technology (OT) was air-gapped from outside interference, and was therefore safe from external compromise. This is no longer true. The advent of the fourth industrial revolution -- otherwise known as business digitisation -- has eroded that airgap. IT and OT are now totally interdependent. Bringing down a manufacturing company’s IT will almost certainly have a knock-on effect against its OT.
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