It is being predicted that the ever-growing market of the Internet of Things will support total services spending of $235 billion (£155bn) in 2016. At the same time, the number of connected devices will grow 30 percent year-on-year, reaching 6.4 billion units globally.

But the growth won’t stop there. As a matter of fact, it will speed up, reaching 20.8 billion units by 2020. According to a Gartner report, the professional category will dominate. In it, businesses contract with external providers in order to design, install and operate IoT systems.

Continue reading →

Microsoft pushed out its first major Windows 10 update earlier today, but if you’re not currently seeing it, be patient. These things take a while to make their way to all users.

If you’ve been holding off upgrading a Windows 7 or 8.x PC, waiting for the November Update (aka Threshold 2) to arrive, now is the time to take action. The easiest way to upgrade is by using Microsoft’s free media creation tool which now offers Build 10586 (which is the current version you’ll get after installing the November Update).

Continue reading →

Using Microsoft's latest operating system and looking for cloud storage? There isn't a shortage of options out there and you can use whichever appeals to you. However, if you're looking for a dedicated app for Windows 10 then Box could be the direction you want to head in.

The service is announcing its app for Windows 10. It has been a partner of Microsoft for a while and claims that it sees things headed in the right direction under the new management.

Continue reading →

Windows 10 users have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Threshold 2, or the November Update to give it its official name, for a while. Well, today that wait is over. Windows Insiders on the Fast and Slow rings received the update previously in the form of Build 10586, but now it's automatically being pushed to everyone.

This is a huge update, packed with new features, improvements and of course bug fixes. If updates weren't already mandatory I'd be telling you to go update your copy of Windows 10 right now (you can of course hurry things along by going to Settings > Update & Security and clicking/tapping on Check for updates.) With so much to cover, I'll keep the intro here to a minimum and crack on with talking about all the cool new stuff.

Continue reading →

Businesses are turning to encryption as a means of meeting compliance and data storage requirements and to guard against breaches and data loss.

But with the rapid evolution of enterprise IT data may be stored in a variety of environments in-house, in the cloud, which presents new security challenges.

Continue reading →

Apple is set to announce the expansion of its Irish subsidiary, creating up to 1,000 new jobs in the area. Company CEO Tim Cook reveal the plans to staff at the firm’s Hollyhill facility in Cork.

The expansion had been expected, with more that €120 million (£8.5 million) invested in the Cork plant since 2012 and it seems that Apple’s enthusiasm for the country has not been dented by recent controversies surrounding the amount of tax it pays.

Continue reading →

Sales teams are often saddled with outdated analytics and reporting which means that they lack a clear understanding of what's needed to drive the sales process forward.

Smart sales specialist TAS Group is launching a new Sales Performance Manager as part of its Dealmaker platform, which is aimed at helping sales leaders and their teams manage every aspect of their sales pipeline and performance with built-in knowledge and insights to help guide their decisions.

Continue reading →

Chronoplex Software has released a major new version of its free genealogy tool, My Family Tree 5.

Tree building is simpler than ever, with a new Relationships view making it easy to browse and edit an individual’s relationships from one place.

Continue reading →

Tor has long been thought of as offering a level of privacy, security and anonymity that enables people to do whatever they want online; it also facilitates access to the so-called Dark Web. Despite this, law enforcement agencies were able to crack Tor and identify a Silk Road 2.0 user. Now it seems that the FBI was helped out by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

It was previously known that the FBI tracked down Brian Richard Farrrell using information from a "university-based research institute". The Tor Project itself believes that the FBI paid researchers at the university at least $1 million to attack the network and gather data from Tor relays that could be analyzed and used to identify users' IP addresses.

Continue reading →

It's increasingly common for hardware manufacturers and software developers to build in various security measures to protect users.

However, a new survey by cloud encryption company Alertsec reveals that these standard security precautions may be creating a false sense of security for PC and mobile users.

Continue reading →

Wondering what other users might be doing on your PC? Checking browser or application histories might give you some clues, and monitoring software can also help.

But the simplest route is probably to build a file timeline, something which shows you when files were created or modified on your PC.

Continue reading →

It looks like Samsung will continue to use its own Exynos chipsets in its next premium Android devices, as it has just announced a new flagship mobile processor. Called Exynos 8 Octa 8890, it is Samsung's answer to Qualcomm's mighty Snapdragon 820.

Samsung says that Exynos 8 Octa 8890 will go into production by the end of the year, so it is very likely that it will be used in Galaxy S6's successor -- likely called Galaxy S7 -- which will probably debut in the first quarter of 2016. Let's take a look and see what Exynos 8 Octa 8890 brings to the table.

Continue reading →

Not long ago LG announced the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition -- the first Android Wear smartwatch that offers LTE/3G connectivity. Now Google has officially announced Android Wear's cellular support.

Breaking down one of the barriers to wearable adoption -- the previous reliance on smartphones for a lot of functionality -- the arrival of cellular support means your smartwatch can be used to make and receive calls even when you don’t have your phone with you.

Continue reading →

Security solutions are lagging behind and failing to provide protection or detection levels adequate to protect against today's security threats.

This is according to a new survey from security and compliance solutions company Promisec. The results point to increased security gaps and vulnerabilities in spite of widespread fear of security breaches.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has partnered up with Brooklyn-based blockchain start-up ConsenSys to bring the technology to financial institutions.

Blockchain is the technology that underpins Bitcoin. It is essentially a vast, decentralized ledger that registers every transaction anonymously, and because the ledger is public, it makes blockchain tamper-proof and ideal for financial clients.

Continue reading →