It's looking like the latest store to fall victim to cybercriminals is women's clothing chain Bebe Stores. Signs of the problem emerged earlier this week when fraudulent charges started to crop up on people's credit cards. What linked each of the victims was the fact that they had shopped in Bebe Stores.

KrebsOnSecurity reports that stolen customer details have been made available for sale on the "cybercrime shop" Goodshop. The timing is interesting as the data seems to have been put up for sale immediately after Black Friday and Cyber Monday -- a period when sales are much higher than normal.

When I first heard the song "I Kissed a Girl" in 2008, I assumed that the singer would be a one-hit-wonder. Little did I know that the artist, Katy Perry, would become a worldwide phenomenon. While I may not be her target audience, I love all of her hits. You can often find me singing "Roar", "Firework" and my favorite, "Hot N Cold".

While Ms. Perry is big on the radio, her YouTube views are astronomical too; in the billions. Heck, the number of people following her on Twitter is insane at a mind-boggling 60.9 million. In other words, she is a mega superstar who shows no sign of slowing down. Today, Intel announces that Katy Perry is launching her first 3D avatar for Pocket Avatars! For fellow super fans like me -- also called 'KatyCats' -- this is huge.

Microsoft Azure RemoteApp has been available since the beginning of the year as a preview service. It's a relatively simple concept (although the technology behind it is rather more complex) that allows for the deployment of Windows apps to the cloud so they can be accessed from anywhere -- even Macs and mobile devices.

Today Microsoft announces that Microsoft Azure RemoteApp will officially launch as a pay-as-you-go service on December 11. Anyone who is already working with the preview will be automatically moved to a 30-day trial version, and after this time a subscription will be needed.

As health care continues to improve, people are living longer and longer nowadays. While this is a great thing, it can be problematic, as a need for elder care increases. No one wants to see the elderly get hurt, but not everyone has family to take care of them.

Luckily, the needs of the elderly are not being ignored, as not only is caring for them noble, but a potential money-maker too. Today, Microsoft shares that a new solution has been created by Intel-GE Care Innovations; a joint venture between the two massive companies. What makes it particularly cool is that it utilizes the Kinect sensor, which is commonly used with the Xbox One.

Is the role of the CIO (chief information officer) still intact after the introduction and rapid advancement of cloud computing? According to a report by Advanced 365, cloud computing is one of the 12 disruptive technologies that are changing the nature of business.

The CIO was initially called the data processing manager and then the title evolved to management information system director. Their main objective is to innovate in line to the IT vision of their company.

Snapchat has come on leaps and bounds since it was first introduced to mobile users in September 2011, despite the photo application gaining a negative reputation with its initial release.

By some, it was seen to perpetuate the sexting trend, with researchers claiming its primary audience to be teens who predominantly shared sensitive content that handily disappeared after the app’s timer runs out. However, since those days Snapchat has expanded its repertoire and is now being used for a variety of creative purposes that are not necessarily privacy-related. And the fundamental reason for its use, according to users, is that the application is seen to be "fun and easy to use".

PayPal, currently owned by eBay, is one of the most popular methods for moving money online. Of course, as Microsoft knows from Windows, with popularity comes problems. People are going to poke and prod in an effort to find soft spots. Sometimes the intention is to help fix things, sometimes to exploit the problems.

Security researcher Yasser Ali is on the good side, but he still has released details of a vulnerability that shows how easy it can be to hack PayPal. However, before you get all worked up, the payment service fixed the problem before Ali announced it. It also paid him in gratitude for the information.

Small is beautiful, and this is something that the Raspberry Pi demonstrates perfectly. But now there's a little competition. The Creator CI20 is a new diminutive micro-computer which offers more power than an existing Raspberry Pi, as well as a choice of operating systems -- Android or Linux.

The company behind the barebones computer is another UK chip manufacturer, Imagination, and at just $65, it's a perfect stocking stuffer. Or at least it would be if units were going to ship before January 2015. Like the Raspberry Pi, the Creator CI20 is a fully loaded board designed for use in all manner of DIY computing projects.

As the IT landscape changes and employees are more likely to be accessing cloud services on a range of devices, it's important that they remain properly protected from threats.

Cloud-delivered security service OpenDNS has announced that it's opened up its platform to other security vendors to fight attacks through intelligence sharing.

Progressive organizations recognize data as a strategic asset and rely upon it for critical decision making. Business intelligence spending has been steadily increasing and is forecast to be upwards of $16 billion worldwide in the next year.

Major investment and effort are spent on data extraction, transformation and load (ETL) from source systems into data warehouses and data marts. Incorrect decisions based on poor data can be disastrous, so how can we ensure that we are utilising the proper data to begin with? In order to do so, we must be able to address the following data quality considerations:

At first glance, Light Alloy looks and feels much like any other free media player. Drag and drop your source files, open discs, play and pause individual tracks, manage playlists, all the usual core basics.

The program handles this well, too, with strong support for just about every format you’ll ever need (and plenty you won’t). But that’s just the start. For us, Light Alloy’s real highlight is its interface.

As more and more data gets moved to the cloud it's easy to forget that it still needs to be protected against corruption and loss.

Cloud backup specialist Spanning has a new solution for Office 365 users with the launch of an enterprise grade cloud-to-cloud backup solution. It's aimed at bringing the same application-centric focus and backup and restore expertise to Office 365 that it already has for Google Apps and Salesforce solutions.

It's only a few weeks since Tim Cook announced that he is gay and the impact is already starting to be felt. The Apple CEO wrote in Bloomberg Business that "I'm proud to be gay", and his coming out has proved to be inspirational, even in the short time between then and now. Now an anti-discrimination bill in Alabama is to be named after him.

Alabama is in the process of passing a bill that will make it illegal for state employers to discriminate against workers on the basis of their sexuality. Democratic state Representative Patricia Todd is the Alabama's only openly gay lawmaker and she proposed the billing, mentioning Tim Cook's name "in jest".

Whilst access to data is often the key to things running smoothly in business, providing access to that data for the right people at the right time can be a challenge.

Enterprise collaboration specialist Clarizen combines social engagement with powerful project management to redefine enterprise collaboration and has announced a new release of its product bringing a number of tools together in a single solution.

A little over a year ago, fashion photographer Viktorija Pashuta released images from a photo shoot entitled What If Girls Were Internet Browsers. It was a simple, fun idea in which Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari were given female personas and represented by models. Now Viktorija has a new project -- What if Guys Were Social Networks.

The idea's very similar to last year's project. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, tumblr, Pinterest, flickr and LinkedIn are all anthropomorphized into eight men, each with their own unique look and personality. In the line-up of social networks, all of the major players are represented, but the new kid on the block, Ello, is notable by its absence.