Latest Technology News

With the growth of the cloud, data centers have become big business. In fact, it's estimated that they now use around 10 percent of the world's energy.

It's not surprising then that companies are looking to increase the efficiency of their IT operations, cut their energy use and reduce their carbon footprints. However, the solution to finding more efficiency may be closer than they think. Jeff Klaus, general manager of Data Center Solutions at Intel argues that enterprises need to look to home grown solutions before turning elsewhere. We spoke to him to find out more.

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Twitter has demonstrated its commitment to artificial intelligence and machine learning by splashing a reported $150m on London-based Magic Pony Technology. The aim is to use the company's advanced technology to improve Twitter's live and video experiences.

Jack Dorsey describes Magic Pony Technology as a 'company that has developed novel machine learning techniques for visual processing'. Thus far this has been used to sharpen blurry images, create computer-generated images from scratch, and to learn to recognize objects.

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Like it or not, we’re all going to have Batman’s Alfred Pennyworth soon. In a digital format, that is, but nonetheless an assistant.

This was concluded by research specialists Gartner, which said that by 2019, at least a quarter of households in developed countries will use the services of a digital assistant, either on a smartphone, or in a standalone device.

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Huawei is a very popular brand in China, but hardly a household name in the USA. Quite frankly, outside of in-the-know Android fans, you'd be hard pressed to find many Americans that know the name.

The company is looking to change this, however, in a very big way. Its MateBook 2-in-1 is finally coming to the USA. This elegant Windows 10 tablet/laptop hybrid has a very affordable starting price, and you can pre-order it starting today.

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Windows 10 is a great operating system, offering a solid user interface and advanced security. The default browser, however, is not so great. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft Edge has a lot of potential, but Chrome is arguably the superior browser for now.

Google's browser is not perfect on Windows 10, apparently, as according to Microsoft, it is a battery vampire. In other words, Chrome -- as well as Firefox and Opera -- will drain your battery faster than the default browser. Using Microsoft Edge is like garlic to these vampires, as it can help you reclaim precious battery life.

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For as long as I’ve been involved with the field, the hard-headed school of "we need a cost benefit analysis" or "build me an ROI justification" has defined the business-benefit of BI as mainly its ability to "speed up and improve decision making".

With the rise of self-service BI, the first part of that aspiration has been successfully satisfied. People are getting decision-relevant data quickly. However, the second outcome -- improved decision making -- is a less certain result (and also much harder to model in an ROI calculation than is agility).

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Feeling unwell? Not sure whether you’re coming down with a cold or something much more serious? One of the worst things you can do is Google your symptoms, as there’s a good chance that after 10 minutes of browsing you’ll have read enough to convince yourself it’s not flu but rather the early stages of Ebola, and you’re actually going to DIE, HORRIBLY. Time to Google "writing a will…"

Despite this being a BAD IDEA, millions of people still Google their symptoms on a daily basis -- the search giant says it amounts to roughly 1 percent of all queries -- but there is some bright news on the horizon as in the very near future those worried individuals should start seeing some more reliable results.

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The success of Oracle’s cloud computing business this year allowed the company to post better than expected results during the fourth fiscal quarter.

The company’s cloud business is made up of two parts: software as a service and platform as a service. Oracle’s customers pay to access its applications online as well as to have access to tools that allow them to program and manage apps and analyze data. Its software as a service segment added 1,600 customers and its platform as a service segment added 2,000 customers during Q4.

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You’ve downloaded what looks like an interesting program, but it’s not working. Is it for 32, or 64-bit Windows? Maybe it needs a different Windows version? There’s no built-in way to find out. ExeProperties is a tiny free Explorer extension which displays an EXE or DLL’s minimum requirements in a couple of clicks.

The program has no interface, doesn’t add any background processes or system tray icons. Install it and there’s no immediate sign that anything has changed at all.

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With the increasing move to the cloud, it may seem that USB storage devices are becoming obsolete. However, research by endpoint protection company CoSoSys suggests that USB still has a place.

The survey of 2016 Infosecurity Europe visitors looks at the use of USB storage devices in the enterprise and the policies governing them.

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With the unstoppable growth of chat apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and the like, emoji have become an incredible phenomenon. The Unicode Consortium is due to publish the Unicode 9.0 spec tomorrow, and it seems that objections from Apple and Microsoft means we're not going to see a rifle emoji included.

The intervention is slightly surprising, yet not entirely unexpected. With the large number of high-profile mass-shootings such as in Orlando, debate about guns has come to the fore once again and the censorship of emoji is perhaps not completely unexpected. But at the same time, there is already a pistol emoji and there are not -- yet -- calls for it to be removed.

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Sandboxing makes it possible to isolate programs from the rest of your system for testing or security purposes. Sandboxie 5.12 is the latest build of such a shareware tool for Windows.

Version 5.12 now adds support sandboxing Microsoft Office 2013, 2016 or 365’s ClickToRun installer for paid users, while improving performance on earlier versions of Windows.

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You’re probably familiar with the free version of the CCleaner system clean up tool. What you might not know is that there’s also a Business Edition aimed at ensuring small and medium business endpoints run efficiently.

Like the standard version it can remove unneeded files, recovers hard drive space, speed up Windows, reduces crashes and helps protect privacy and security. Business Edition adds the ability to clean multiple user profiles, it updates itself automatically, supports scripting, and comes with priority technical support.

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Windows 10 saw Microsoft replace the old-style Solitaire with a Windows app which pesters you with ads every time it runs.

This could be much worse -- the ads are only at launch, not while you’re playing -- but if you’re looking for an alternative anyway, here are three fun competitors for Windows XP/ Vista and later.

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Unicorns are breeding in Britain. The country is now home to more than a third of European unicorns (tech companies valued at over $1 billion), but the whole of Europe is faring well.

A new report by GP Bullhound, an investment banking firm, reveals that there are 47 unicorns in Europe and 18 of them are to be found in Britain. The number of European unicorns has jumped by more than 20 percent in the last year, and the overall valued is placed at $130 billion (around £90 billion).

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