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As the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) takes hold across multiple industries, buzz around edge computing is growing in parallel as operators evolve to push more and more computing power to the edge of their networks, where IIoT functions really live.

The data being generated, however, is now becoming more and more critically important, requiring new levels of protection. We spoke to Jason Andersen, VP of business line management at Stratus Technologies, a provider of availability solutions for edge computing, IIoT and critical infrastructure. Jason offers his insights on the evolution of data criticality and protection as well as unified edge infrastructure as a future platform of the next generation of edge processing.

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An APK teardown of version 8.4 of the Google Play Store app shows that there could be some exciting changes on the horizon for Android users.

Perhaps the most interesting revelation is that Google appears to be on the verge of introducing audiobooks to the store. This means that you may soon be able to ditch the likes of Audible and buy your audiobooks direct from Google -- and there could also be free audiobooks! The teardown also shows that there are new notification and app update options to come as well.

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Having an SD card reader on a laptop nowadays is nice, but hardly necessary. After all, thanks to the cloud, consumers can easily transport files via the internet. As many photographers and videographers will yell you, however, the cloud is not always a viable solution for them -- working with local storage cards can be a must. The problem, you see, is that many creative people use macOS and the latest MacBook Pro laptops do not have such a card reader. What is the owner of Apple's latest laptop to do?

Just buy an adapter, of course! There are many USB-C card readers on the market that will work on macOS, Windows, and Linux. If you work on multiple machines, however, and some of those computers do not have USB-C, you will unfortunately have to buy a second dongle, right? Actually, no. Thanks to products such as StartTech's latest offering (SDMSDRWU3AC), which is a card reader that supports both USB-C and USB-A, you can use one adapter across all of your computers.

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True product innovation has long heralded not just greater growth for companies, but for nations and individual careers as well. (Apple is a great example of this.) Now take it a step further: the ability to repeat a successful product innovation model confers an even more important benefit: lasting competitive advantage. (Again you can look to Apple and its concerted efforts to continue innovation in the absence of Steve Jobs.) Yet we see successful innovation within large companies trending consistently downward, and according to the Journal of Product Innovation & Management, up to 49 percent of innovations now fail.

So what can companies do to bottle innovation?

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With more than 46,500 miles of interconnected highways and minimally viable public transit in most parts of the state, California is undoubtedly a driving state. This is best evidenced in Southern California, where the freeway system’s notorious traffic and intricacy in design is a daily conversation piece.

A novel concept at the time, California freeways expounded upon the rudimentary expressways that existed in New York, Detroit, and Chicago. What had once been an impromptu system of roads were revamped into streamlined boulevards. Highways were widened and streets were extended. Arteries like the Ramona Boulevard freeway and Hwy 101 linked metropoles to remote locales. Californian’s urban and suburban identity was radically transformed and never looked back.

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While there have -- as ever -- been endless rumors about the next handset from OnePlus, there has been very little concrete news from the company about the OnePlus 5T. Today that changes.

OnePlus has made numerous allusions to the successor to the OnePlus 5 -- including tweeting pictures of five cups of tea -- but now chief executive Pete Lau has officially spoken about the upcoming handset. He confirms that there is definitely a 3.5mm headphone jack.

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Connected devices like smart TVs and webcams aren't new -- but since their inception 30 years ago, the number of humans connected to the internet has been surpassed by the number of devices connected to it.

In fact, industry analysts estimate the number of connected devices will reach 50 billion by 2020. And as the number of connected devices increases exponentially, so the number of security risks grows as well.

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Google's bug-tracking database -- the Google Issue Tracker which is known as the Buganizer System within the company itself -- had its own security holes which left it vulnerable to hackers.

Researcher Alex Birsan was able to exploit vulnerabilities so he could gain wider access to Google's database than he should have been able to. The trick was a simple matter of fooling the system into letting him register a @google.com email address that would ordinarily be reserved for Google employees.

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Samsung will release the Android Oreo update for a significant number of devices, and, just like last year, the latest flagships in the Galaxy S range are the first to receive this treatment.

Android Oreo will initially be offered on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ through the Samsung Experience 9.0 beta program, which opens today, November 2, for users in US, UK and South Korea. Here is what you need to know.

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A quick look at current rankings of the top Fortune 500 companies reveals a key finding -- most of today’s best performing companies have had to start from scratch when it came to digital transformation.

Of the top 10, only one -- Apple -- started as a technology company. The other highest performers, Walmart, Berkshire Hathaway and Exxon Mobil, all had to strategize to become digital after their company was well on its way to success. Being digital today isn’t about having a website -- it involves redesigning the experience based on the way we work, live and interact. A recent report by Forrester suggests that companies have underestimated just how difficult it is to pivot to mobile-led digital transformation. But, as the world around us becomes more and more connected, digital transformation is within reach -- and in our always-on society, it all starts with a "mobile first" mindset.

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Anyone running a website powered by WordPress is being told to upgrade to version 4.8.3 immediately after the discovery of a serious security issue.

The problem -- an SQL injection vulnerability -- affects millions of websites running WordPress 4.8.2 and older. In addition to installing the latest update, site owners are advised to update plugins that could be exploited.

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Allowing employees to access corporate data via their own devices is increasingly popular, but it does present risks if not implemented correctly.

A new report from data protection company Bitglass finds one in four organizations do not have multi-factor authentication methods in place to secure BYOD -- a well-known enterprise security gap.

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If you want to get your head in the cloud and get up to speed on the features in Office 365, you've come to the right place.

Inside Microsoft Office 365 For Dummies, 2nd Edition, you'll learn step by step how to use email, take advantage of SharePoint Online for collaboration, communicate with team members using Skype for Business, get work done with the latest version of Office Online, and how to make a plan for effectively migrating your company to Office 365.

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With the iPhone X due to ship to those who have pre-ordered tomorrow as well as being available in stores in limited numbers, it has emerged that Apple is allowing app developers to access facial data.

Concerns have already been voiced about the privacy of Face ID and how facial data is used, but Apple responded to these saying the data remains on the iPhone X and is never sent to the cloud. But contracts seen by Reuters show that app developers are permitted to take facial data off phones, providing certain criteria are met.

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The price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed this year, going from $1,000 in early-January to $3,000 in mid-June. Some pundits saw it coming, but not many believed it would go higher than that. Yet, in early-September, the main cryptocurrency reached $5,000. And it kept going.

Today, Bitcoin is trading over $7,300 for the first time ever. It's up 730 percent since the beginning of the year, and its market cap now sits at over $122.7 billion, which is a few billion more than what the whole market was worth at its June peak. It's quite unbelievable.

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