Cloud spending is now a critical KPI for the majority of data teams, according to a new report. Almost 80 percent of business stakeholders say cloud spending is a critical KPI while 55 percent of data practitioners say the same.

The study, from data observability platform Unravel Data, surveyed 350 data professionals at the Data Teams Summit event earlier this year and shows that in addition to cloud spending being elevated as a top KPI, 44 percent report that they believe that they are leaving money on the table when it comes to their public cloud utilization.

As organizations and their customers become more reliant on digital services, DevOps teams are often required to get together quickly to troubleshoot and resolve outages or user experience problems.

However, against the backdrop of the 24/7 economy and a shortage of technology skills, it’s time to reassess whether these 'war rooms' remain an effective tactic for dealing with urgent issues. Or, could they be exacerbating the challenges organizations face in retaining staff and managing skilled DevOps teams’ workloads?

Since its inception, Microsoft Defender Antivirus (FKA Windows Defender) was considered somewhat of a joke by power users. They would assert that it provided you with the protection of an umbrella in a hurricane. While its deficiencies were often exaggerated, indeed, it didn’t give you the same depth and scope as high-quality third-party solutions. 

When Bitdefender retired its free antivirus solution in 2021 (only to release a new free antivirus in 2022), many turned back to Microsoft Defender. After all, Microsoft should ultimately know the best ways to secure its software. It's surprising it took so long for the company to expand the coverage of its Microsoft Defender line, especially, with the largest share of its revenue being made from intelligent cloud computing.

When we’re going about our days -- ingesting media from a mountain of different sources -- it is always possible that the information we come across, be it in print, radio, or on the internet, may not be accurate. False information has been around since the beginning of time, but due to the ever-present online world, we are now more likely to consume content that is distorted or fabricated unintentionally.

People are used to having their thoughts shaped by the material they come across online, for example, through influencer marketing or celebrity endorsements. Even if facts don't back up these opinions, they still have a significant impact, and a lot of false news is created to evoke strong emotions. Therefore, it is essential that we take a moment to check if what we have read or heard is true when our feelings are affected.

Having announced its plans to do so last year, Microsoft has added support for Gmail accounts to the new Outlook for Windows preview for Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Gmail support is something that has been available to Office Insiders for a little while, but now the company is opening it up to anyone who is running the preview of the new Outlook for Windows. Microsoft says that it also plans to add IMAP support as well as support for Yahoo and iCloud, but for now it is Gmail users the company is treating -- but there is something you need to do first.

Windows Sandbox is a built-in feature of Windows 10 and Windows 11. Its main purpose is to provide a safe environment for running applications. Anything that is executed in the sandbox, e.g., a software that is installed, remains trapped inside. It can’t break out and affect the "real" operating system.

As a consequence, malware, spyware and other unwanted and undesirable code, can’t infect the system or pull data from it.

Python is among the most popular programming languages in the world. It’s ideal for beginners because it’s easy to read and write, and for developers because it’s widely available with a strong support community, extensive documentation, and phenomenal libraries -- both built-in and user-contributed.

Expert authors have designed this project-based course to get you up and running with Python.

The UK telecoms regulator Ofcom's 'One Touch Switching' initiative -- intended to make it easier for consumers to change broadband providers -- has been delayed as service providers aren't ready.

Whilst it was announced in 2021 and meant to come into force this Monday (April 3rd), One Touch Switching has now been pushed back and Ofcom has begun an enforcement program.

Book lovers around the world are mourning the loss of Book Depository following the announcement that the Amazon-owned online bookstore is to close.

Based in the UK, Book Depository has been offering free worldwide delivery of books, including many titles that are hard to get hold of from other sources, since 2007. The shutdown date is imminent -- April 26 -- but as orders are being accepted until that day, there is still time to grab a bargain.

A new survey from OTORIO and ServiceNow reveals that 58 percent of organizations identify their operational technology (OT) cybersecurity risk level as high or critical.

However, the survey of 200 IT and OT leaders shows only 47 percent of companies surveyed have an OT cybersecurity solution in place, and 81 percent of respondents still manage their OT risks manually rather than having an automated solution.

Since 2020, several governments and organizations have banned, or considered banning, the immensely popular social media app TikTok from their staff’s devices.

With all these alarming bells ringing, we thought it might be handy to break down what we know and see if we can plot a sensible strategy from there. So, if your hair is on fire, extinguish it and consider this with a cool head.

While many were marveling at the release of OpenAI’s GPT-4, Monitaur was busy analyzing the accompanying papers that examined the risks and technical design of its latest engine. In this commentary, I examine this through the lens of proper governance, responsible use, and ethical AI, while also considering the larger landscape of language models within which OpenAI sits.

The analysis results were not what were hoped for.

Historically, some sectors have moved towards a digital transformation quickly, while others have taken longer to progress. Here, we will look at how living in the per-digitalised age can be dangerous, as well as issues surrounding companies falling behind their competitors, and how and why traditional processes can be changed.

Digital transformation happens when companies shift away from traditional methods and introduce technology as a fundamental part of their strategy. This can take place through either digital technology being integrated into an organization or through a cultural shift within the business.

Active Directory (AD) is used by 90 percent of enterprises as the primary source of trust for identity and access. But it can also be a weak link, exploited in many modern cyberattacks.

We spoke to Ran Harel, senior director of product management at Semperis, to explore the challenges in securing a hybrid AD environment and how organizations can best defend this expanded attack surface.

For the past few months, the tech -- and tech-adjacent -- world has been fascinated by ChatGPT. A generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool that has been open for public use since late 2022, it’s designed to interact with humans to answer questions or develop content based on a prompt written in simple, conversational English rather than a complex data query.

ChatGPT has been used to write Valentine’s Day poems, plan a Thanksgiving menu and write other humorous outputs. It also has quickly become a research hub, programming tutor and source for writing inspiration. Famously, a leading tech news site used ChatGPT to write some of its articles, to varying degrees of success.