Thanks to mobile devices, the cloud and the internet of things Cisco reckons that by 2020 there will be 50 billion digital endpoints.

This volume of connected devices offers huge potential for business. But as 85 percent of enterprise data still sits on in-house systems like ERP packages and secure databases its potential is hard to release.

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Wearable technology has yet to really make an impact, but its time is coming. There are more and more products being released by many of the world's top tech firms, and shows focusing on wearables are popping up across the globe.

Amazon today joins in the wearables craze by launching a one-stop shop where customers can find and buy the latest in wearable technology, including activity trackers, smart watches, and wearable cameras. There are products on offer from the likes of Samsung, Jawbone, GoPro, Basis, and Misfit.

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Today Acer is holding a large event, which is uncharacteristic of the company. Rumors are flying all over the place as to why. Will there be new Chromebooks? A Chrome tablet? New Android Devices? A wearable?

We will know soon enough. The event is called "A Touch More Connected" and will kick off at 10AM ET. I will be live-blogging from the front row. Stay tuned!

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Warner Music Group (WMG) is looking to expand its horizons and markets, continuing to look into new areas for business opportunities. The latest step is a move into China with the announcement of an acquisition of Gold Typhoon's music catalog and artist roster.

In a press release, WMG refers to Gold Typhoon as "one of the most successful independent music companies operating in the Greater China Region". The label operates in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and hosts some of the most popular pop and rock artists in the region.

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Much reporting of business metrics is still rooted in the era of static graphs and infrequent use. It's cumbersome and the information gets out of date fast.

Business planning and performance management specialist Tidemark is looking to bring reporting into the mobile and cloud era with the launch of its new Playbooks product.

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You have a PDF document you’d like to share with others -- but there’s a problem. It has one or two objects which really should be removed: a logo, a phone number, a line of text, whatever it might be.

You could solve this by opening the document in a full-strength PDF editor, carefully editing it to suit your needs.

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Irish security developer Safer Networking has released Spybot -- Search & Destroy 2.3, a minor -- but significant -- update to its Windows anti-malware tool.

The update debuts a brand new Notifications feature that allows users to receive scan results remotely, plus implements a number of improvements to scan performance as well as usability.

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There is not even a shred of doubt in my mind when saying the best camera smartphone is the Nokia Lumia 1020. Aside from packing an impressive sensor in a relatively small body, it is the only device of its kind that was actually designed to be usable daily as a normal smartphone.

Its main competitor, if it can be called that, has been the Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom. Put kindly, it is the unholy union between a point-and-shoot camera and an Android smartphone. It is far, far, far from being remotely pretty and as such, mockery ensued. Thankfully, Samsung has gotten the message, as its successor, the Galaxy K zoom, is more like the Lumia 1020 and less like something only Frankenstein would appreciate.

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Recent high profile stories like the Heartbleed bug have turned the spotlight on IT security. A new report by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) highlights how a skills crisis is putting more pressure on security teams.

ISACA surveyed enterprises to understand the level of attacks and their security preparedness. Key findings include that one in every five enterprises has suffered an advanced persistent threat attack, but that one in three of those don't know where it came from.

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Today, Apple launched a refreshed MacBook Air lineup featuring a higher-clocked Intel Core i5 processor. The minor update comes nearly one year after the company unveiled the previous generation, which toted impressive battery life.

The small bump in speed is a welcome improvement that will make Apple's ultrabooks perform slightly better in resource-intensive scenarios, while delivering comparable battery life to the 2013 lineup. It is, however, not enough to justify an upgrade from the 2013 MacBook Air, in case you are thinking about it, as this is virtually the only difference between the two generations.

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Microsoft has updated its .NET Framework Repair Tool to version 1.2, adding the ability to detect and fix issues with .NET Framework 4.5 and 4.5.1.

As with previous releases, the Repair Tool can only address MSI-installed updates of the .NET Framework from 3.5 SP1 to 4.5.1, and won’t touch the version installed with Windows.

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Microsoft has really been embracing video lately. Whether bashing the Chromebook or promoting its own Surface tablets, the videos it produces are enjoyable and informative to say the least.

Say what you want about the Surface line of tablets, but they are very functional, well-made devices. Microsoft's videos simply show-off the tablet's potential, which is sometimes lost in the tech community. Let's be honest, many people have dismissed Surface, unfairly. Today, the company unleashes another video, highlighting how a wedding planner named Ashlee uses Surface to be succesful.

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The latest big name company to fall victim to a security breach is AOL. In a post on the company blog, the AOL security team reveals that it is currently working with "best-in-class external forensic experts and federal authorities" to investigate unauthorized access to the network. Suspicion was raised by a marked increase in the number of spam emails sent via spoofed AOL Mail addresses, and an investigation was immediately launched.

AOL says that a "significant number of user accounts" are affected and that the breach involves accessing information associated with these accounts. It seems that those responsible for the security breach have been able to gain access to email addresses, postal addresses, and address book contact information, as well as encrypted versions of passwords and answers to security questions.

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Free storage space is very common, and it's available from the likes of Dropbox, Google and countless others. Microsoft's OneDrive also gives users a certain amount of free online storage space, and today business users receive a massive boost -- a forty-fold increase in capacity. OneDrive for Business storage is being boosted from 25GB to 1TB per user, and the same is true for Office 365 ProPlus customers.

Microsoft is putting ever-increasing faith in the cloud, particularly for its business users. "The cloud is about breaking down walls between people and information. Not building a new set of islands in the sky", states the Office blog. There's a third announcement too: "we’ll help organizations migrate data to OneDrive for Business". It's not quite clear exactly what this entails, but it certainly sounds good for anyone who has their data hosted elsewhere.

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We all have friends (people we know) and friends (people we not only know but hang out with). Maybe the better contrast might be between friends and buddies. Well Avram Miller is one of my buddies. He lives down the road from me and my kids prefer his pool to ours because his is solar heated. The retired Intel VP of business development is quite a character, knows a lot of people who know people, and understands the business of technology at a level few people do. So when he wrote a post this morning predicting that Apple will clean Google’s clock in search, I sat up in my chair.

Avram’s thesis is that Steve Jobs felt betrayed by Google’s development of Android and decided years ago to go after the soft underbelly of the Googleplex by building a superior search product called Found that Apple would have no need to monetize -- the Switzerland of search. Please read Avram’s post and you’ll see he claims that Steve Jobs even pre-recorded his participation in the Found launch event scheduled for sometime next year. Which of course makes me wonder what else Steve may have prerecorded?

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