For IT teams to deliver reliable systems with high availability they need to be able to spot problems and potential problems early. These challenges are greater as systems move to the cloud and software-defined data centers.

Operations analytics specialist Continuity Software is launching the latest version of its AvailabilityGuard software, providing enterprise IT teams with advanced predictive analytics, risk detection, and outage prevention capabilities.

Social network Twitter is facing a potential lawsuit after allegedly spying on users’ Direct Messages, a popular feature where people can talk privately without anyone else seeing.

A court case has been filed in San Francisco by Wilford Raney, in which it accuses Twitter of using algorithms to "surreptitiously" eavesdrop on users.

It was the crisis that almost ended my career -- my real career, specifically, as an elite software architect-for-hire to some of the largest companies in the world.

It was April, 2009, and my family and I had just set sail on a 26-day Costa repositioning cruise from our home on Mauritius. Destination: Savona, Italy, by way of the African coast, Suez Canal and Egypt. It was day three and we were docked at the port of "Noise Be" on the coast of Madagascar when a quick check of my email at a local Internet café revealed a storm brewing back at 750 7th Avenue, NYC.

Freeware developer Sordum has released Simple VHD Manager, a tiny portable tool which makes it easier to access and use virtual drives (VHD, VHDX, ISO) in Windows 7 and later.

Drag and drop your files onto the program and they can be attached in a couple of clicks, making them freely accessible in Explorer.

If you work in IT it's generally the case that you're quite well paid and enjoy good career prospects. Yet according to a new survey you're probably also unhappy.

Workforce engagement specialist TinyPulse surveyed over 5,000 tech and IT workers and found that they are very, very unhappy. The top drivers of unhappiness were poor coworker relationships, little room for growth with their employer, and not enough praise for their work.

When you are bored, or when you want to find clear instructions on how to do something or to get to know the latest news, the best way to do it is to watch corresponding videos. Indeed, all the information is consumed much better if it’s a video.

The best resource of videos is of course the Internet, but which websites are the best resources to enjoy various video materials? Today we have listed and reviewed the best video sharing websites for various purposes.

Alex Gibney’s Steve Jobs documentary is available now in some theaters, on Amazon Instant Video and, ironically, on iTunes. It’s a film that purports to figure out what made Steve Jobs tick. And it does a lot, just not that.

I’m not a dispassionate reviewer here. More than a year before Jobs died I tried to hire Alex Gibney to make a Steve Jobs film with me. At that point he suggested I be the director, that he’d coach me ("It’s not that hard", the Oscar-winner claimed.) We talked and met but didn’t come to a deal. Later Gibney decided to do a Jobs film on his own -- this film -- and he came to me for help. We talked and met but again didn’t come to a deal. Nothing is unusual about any of this, but it made me eager to see what kind of movie he would make and how it would compare to the one I originally had in mind.

Just last week Microsoft managed to piss off a lot of people by secretly downloading the Windows 10 installation files to their computers without permission. The comments from BetaNews readers were plentiful, but divided. Some didn't see the problem, while others thought it to be invasive and presumptive.

But there was one question that popped up again and again -- just what the hell was Microsoft thinking? I decided to try to find out but found that the company was somewhat cagey with what it wanted to say on the matter. This is not on. People are more than a little annoyed, and they are demanding answers. They deserve them.

Having a clean home can be a great feeling. Sadly, many people are working long hours nowadays and have far less time for cleaning. In other words, you can't fault someone for being too tired to clean.

If you fall into the camp of being too tired or busy to stay on top of cleaning, robots may be able to help. When you think of cleaning and robotics, the name "Roomba" probably comes to mind. iRobot's vacuum robot is wildly popular and is cemented into popular culture. Today, however, the company brings the vacuum to the Internet of Things, Yes, the all-new consumer-focused Roomba 980 is internet-connected and app-controlled.

Apple has released its first ever Android app. No, there's not an Android version of Safari or anything like that, but a tool designed to simplify the process of switching to iOS. The predictably named Move to iOS will appeal to anyone who was persuaded to switch allegiances by the release of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, or indeed iOS 9.

The app can be used to move contacts, messages, photos and more to a new iPhone or iPad, and is compatible with phones and tablets running Android 4.0 and newer. It works slightly differently to what you may have expected. Rather than uploading data to the cloud, it instead creates a private Wi-Fi network between an Android and iOS device and securely transfers it.

German car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz has revealed that it is planning to develop its own on-demand, self-driving car service, specifically using limousines as the vehicle of choice.

It goes without saying that this move will be putting them head to head with the search engine giant Google and app-based taxi service Uber.

A lengthy password is a good thing, right? For some Android users running Lollipop, however, it may be possible to bypass the lockscreen simply by entering a password that is incredibly long. Copy and paste a lengthy string into the password field, and it is possible to crash the lockscreen and gain access to the phone or tablet.

While the vulnerability is worrying, it is not something that can be exploited remotely -- it is necessary to have physical access to the phone. The bug was discovered by security researchers at Texas University and while a patch has been issued for Nexus devices, other handsets remain vulnerable.

Google has been hit by anti-monopoly lawsuits all over the world. The Americas, Europe, India, China, have all had (or currently have) some sort of lawsuit against the search giant, claiming the American company abuses its dominant position in the search engine market.

Now, Russia is jumping on the bandwagon, with its anti-monopoly agency saying Google is using Android to promote its other services.

As an Apple Watch owner I’ve been excitedly awaiting the arrival of the next generation of watchOS for my device. I really like Watch, but it’s currently fairly limited. The updated OS gains support for native apps (you’ll be able to run apps on the Watch not just mirroring them from your iPhone) and there are new communication features, improved Siri functionality and additional faces to look forward to as well.

Unfortunately, while watchOS 2 was set to be made available later today, the discovery of a major bug has scuppered those plans.

A vulnerability has been discovered in iOS and OS X that could be used to install apps without permission, using AirDrop. The feature exists to provide a way for people to quickly send files from one device to another, but security researcher Mark Dowd has been able to exploit the vulnerability to push apps to iOS even if the user does not accept the file that is AirDropped.

Dowd has reported the vulnerability to Apple, but the company has failed to patch the problem so it still exists in iOS 9. Using a combination of techniques, it is possible to bypass the security screen that asks if an app is to be trusted or not, meaning that a malicious app can be installed without permission or notification.