Latest Technology News

It's no secret that today's technology sector is interested in software-defined storage (SDS) -- you'll often hear talk of its ability to reduce costs and increase simplicity. But while many companies are pointing to their technology as SDS, most only have a portion of what’s necessary to be considered truly software-defined.

In order to fix this confusion, we need to agree on a concrete definition of SDS in order to get the best use of the technology and understand how organizations can use it as a cost effective data management solution. We spoke to Ashok Rajagopalan, head of products at elastic block storage provider Datera, to understand this hype and find out how vendors in today’s cluttered market can stand out as true SDS solutions.

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A business in the UK would need to spend over £1 million to recover from a security breach, new research has claimed.

According to the 2017 Risk:Value report from NTT Group, UK companies have to pay more than the global average of £1 million, which has gone up from the previous report’s estimate of $907,000.

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Anime is quite popular nowadays, not only with children, but adults too. Actually, some of the cartoons can have grown-up themes, making them inappropriate for kids. The Japanese animation is not just seen in TV shows and movies, but the characters are featured on merchandise and in video games too. The wildly popular Pokémon, for instance, is anime. Fans of this genre buy items such as figurines, clothing, and, sometimes, creepy body pillows too. Microsoft has even designated July to be "Anime Month" in its online store.

To celebrate the art of anime, popular Amazon-owned steaming service Twitch has partnered with American content-distributor Crunchyroll for a special viewing marathon. For five straight days, users will be able to watch anime content while chatting with others about what they are viewing. In other words, Twitch is making the act of watching anime communal, rather than private.

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The recent British Grand Prix may not have been Red Bull Racing’s most successful race, with Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo failing to make the podium, but the the team has built up a number of innovative technology partnerships in recent years.

Citrix and Red Bull Racing, which is headquartered in Milton Keynes, UK, have worked together for ten years now, with the software giant providing a number of key services to one of the sport’s top teams.

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Build it and they will come. That is the view many organizations maintain about their data lakes and data warehouses. Companies are rapidly investing in systems and processes to retain business data that they know is valuable but have no clue what to do with it. Even the government collects mass amounts of data without specific plans for using the information at the time of collection. This trend only accelerates as the amount of data being produced continues to escalate. Today, it is estimated that human knowledge is doubling every 12 to 13 months and IBM is estimating that with the build out of the "internet of things," knowledge will double every 12 hours.

Most organizations search for value in their data by throwing teams of data scientists at the various stores of data collected hoping to find insights that are commercially viable. This approach typically results in endless hours of digging for insights and if any are found, they rarely see the light of day. In order to monetize your data, you need a different approach, one that starts by turning the process on its head. We recommend three approaches to help you monetize your data:

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Throughout history, businesses have relied on certain measures to project their success -- sales growth, customer retention, churn rate, and so on. However, those are all lagging indicators for modern businesses that want to stay ahead of the competition; all these potential business challenges must fall under a single new metric: time to insight. Similarly, think about what happened with high-frequency trading, where suddenly, years of research and algorithms didn’t matter if your competition could act on information orders of magnitude faster than you -- it was like having a crystal ball to the future!

The advent of big data has companies flooded by a tsunami of information. The problem with this is twofold: big data is difficult to wrangle in order to provide insights in the first place, and once the right architecture is deployed, it can then be hard to choose the proper parameters to provide those insights.

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Microsoft is delivering on its plan to bring two updates per year to Windows Server and the company has revealed the first-ever Insider build of the operating system.

Users who are registered with a corporate Active Directory credential can download Windows Server Insider Preview Build 16237. Microsoft has made sure that this update adds many new features that highlight the company's interest in microservices and containers.

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Fake news is not new. It has been around since the invention of print some 500 years ago. It was used to sensationalize and inflame passions and prejudices, a trend that’s carried over into our current culture. Today, fake news is increasingly being combined with social media to peddle products with false claims and endorsements.

MSNBC columnist, Herb Weisbaum, describes this phenomenon perfectly: "Some sleazy companies are using a deceptive marketing technique to trick people into buying wrinkle creams and diet pills. They've created fake news websites with fake celebrity stories and fake product endorsements."

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Summer is in full force, meaning many of you are hanging out with friends and family outside. Nothing beats having a good time outdoors with loved ones -- especially when listening to good music.

While playing your favorite tunes through your smartphone's speaker is passable, it doesn't make for a good party. That's why a Bluetooth speaker is a wise investment. Short on funds? Don't worry. We here at BetaNews are giving one away -- the Ultimate Ears WONDERBOOM (Blue/Red). Not only is the wireless speaker waterproof, but it actually floats on its own!

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The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has issued a PSA warning about the potential dangers of smart toys. The bureau encourages parents to consider cyber security before bringing internet-connect toys into the home because they could risk the privacy and safety of children.

The announcement warns of the potential for personal information to be gathered through such toys. The presence of sensors, microphones, cameras, data storage components, speech recognition and GPS, coupled with cloud storage of data, is cited as cause for concern, and parents are urged to check privacy agreements.

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While GNOME is my favorite desktop environment, I don't hate KDE. Actually, I rather love Plasma when it is done right. Case in point, I absolutely adore Netrunner -- the best KDE-focused Linux-based operating system. Technically, there are two versions of the OS -- the "regular" variant based on Debian and a rolling release based on Arch/Manjaro.

Today, after more than a year, Netrunner Rolling gets a refreshed ISO. This time, we have Netrunner Rolling 2017.07. Some highlights include SMPlayer becoming the default music and video handler, while SUSE Imagewriter is replaced by the KDE Neon variant.

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A global cyber-attack could be as expensive as a major natural disaster, a new report has claimed.

Analysis by Lloyd’s of London compared the effects of a hypothetical global cyber-attack to the super storm known as Hurricane Sandy that hit the US coast in 2012, in terms of the financial impact.

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Google Glass was long expected to make a comeback, but it is not until today that the search giant officially announces a new version of the controversial headset. It's called Enterprise Edition and, just like its name suggests, it is designed with business users in mind.

We heard about the Enterprise Edition back in July 2015, half a year after Google discontinued the commercially-available Explorer Edition, and since that time the search giant says that it has tested the headset as part of a limited program open to select businesses.

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Over the past decade, iOS devices have found their way into many businesses. According to a new report this has led to an increase in the number of attacks and incidences of malware on the platform.

Mobile threat defense company Skycure analyzed the security impact of iOS on the enterprise over the past ten years and found that the percentage of enterprise iOS devices that have malicious apps installed today has more than tripled since the third quarter of 2016. In comparison, the rate of Android malware infections has stayed relatively flat.

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Malwarebytes has released AdwCleaner 7.0, a major new version of its portable Windows tool for removing adware, unwanted toolbars, PUPs and browser hijackers. It’s the first major update since Malwarebytes acquired AdwCleaner back in October 2016.

AdwCleaner 7.0 arrives as a completely rewritten piece of software, complete with brand new user interface, database system and the promise of more effective removal and faster scan times.

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