Cloud storage is amazingly convenient. Unfortunately, the best part of the cloud can also be the worst. You see, having your files stored on someone else's severs and accessing them over the internet opens you to focused hacking, and potentially, incompetence by the cloud storage company too. As a way to have the best of both worlds, some folks will set up net-connected local storage so they can manage their own 'cloud'.

Today, Canonical and Western Digital (WDLabs) unveil an Ubuntu Core Linux-based cloud storage and 'Internet of Things' device called 'Nextcloud Box'. The box leverages the open source Nextcloud service and can be powered by a Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3, or oDroid C2. Will it be easier to use and manage than closed source solutions?

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Computer vision -- meaning quite literally, machines seeing things -- is poised to explode over the next several years. This technology is very important to things such as security cameras, artificial intelligence and robotics. On an immediate consumer level, Intel's RealSense technology is already being used for Windows Hello -- a secure camera-based method of logging into Microsoft's operating system with biometrics.

Intel is looking to further bolster its RealSense technology, plus other such initiatives, with the acquisition of Movidius. This soon-to-be-acquired company's main focus is computer vision and artificial intelligence, making it a seemingly smart fit for achieving Intel's goals.

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Amazon Dash Button is now available in the UK. For anyone who finds logging into their Amazon account to place an order for everyday things like loo roll and coffee difficult, this physical button (thought by many to be an April Fool a couple of years ago) does the 'hard' work for you.

Available exclusively to Amazon Prime members, the Amazon Dash Button is available for a number of top brands and is (effectively) free. Amazon describes the button as "the Wi-Fi-connected device that conveniently reorders your favourite products with the simple press of a button", but it's hard not to see it as a product that panders to the terminally lazy and those under the illusion that their time is the most valuable.

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Intel has just announced a series of new 3D NAND SSDs, aimed at PCs, data centers and Internet of Things devices. The company says the new array offers a "cost effective replacement for traditional Hard Disk Drives".

From the consumer side, there are two new devices: Intel SSD 600p Series, and Intel SSD Pro 600p Series. It uses PCIe Gen3x4, NVMe interface, resulting in a 17 times faster performance over HDD, and three times faster performance over SATA SDDs.

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The Raspberry Pi is a fantastic low-cost computer, available in a choice of versions. The Raspberry Pi Zero is the cheapest of the bunch, priced at just $5, plus all the extra bits and pieces you need to get it up and running.

Omega2 is an identically priced Linux computer designed for building connected hardware applications, but unlike the Zero it has integrated Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) and on-board flash storage. No need to add a Wi-Fi dongle or SD card.

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We're all aware of the Internet of Things and its likely effect on our homes, but there's another side to it which is its impact on industry.

Electronics supplier RS Components has put together an interactive graphic looking at how the Industrial IoT is going to change everyday functions from streetlighting to agriculture.

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Plugging things into a smart electrical plug might not be the wisest of choices at the moment, because they could easily be hacked, putting both your physical and digital life at risk.

This is according to a new report by Bitdefender, which says that smart electrical plugs could be hacked, and the attacker could not only gain access to your personal data, but also reprogram the plug.

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There is a "clear disconnect" between vision and the ability to execute that vision among companies that want to use Internet of Things (IoT) devices to collect data and act on them to improve product quality.

Those are the results of a new study by LogMeIn’s Xively, entitled Simplifying the Complexity of IoT.

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Cyber attacks are increasingly happening at the mobile and IoT application layer. This allows hackers to bypass server-level security and go straight for the binary code, to steal IP, credentials and other sensitive information.

Attack prevention company Arxan Technologies is launching new features to help guard against this type of threat. These include new and enhanced support for major operating systems and languages, including QNX (a subsidiary of Blackberry) and Apple's Swift programming language, as well as new white-box cryptographic schemes including SHA-3.

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Linux and other open source software have been in the news quite a bit lately. As more and more people are seeing, closed source is not the only way to make money. A company like Red Hat, for instance, is able to be profitable while focusing its business on open source.

Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux-based operating systems, and it is not hard to see why. Not only is it easy to use and adaptable to much hardware (such as SoC boards), but there is a ton of free support online from the Ubuntu user community too. Today, Canonical announces a special Ubuntu Core image for the uCRobotics Bubblegum-96 board.

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As more and more devices get connected to the Internet of Things, so their susceptibility to hacking increases too.

New research from enterprise data protection company Vormetric in conjunction with Wakefield Research shows that this is a concern for many people.

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Both virtual and augmented reality, machine learning and big data analytics, as well as the Internet of Things, are the most in-demand skills, according to a new report by Packt.

The report, titled "Skill Up", polled more than 11,500 worldwide developers and IT professionals. Besides identifying the most sought-after skills, it also says that security is one of the highest-paying industries in 2016, especially for freelancers.

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A new study from the Ponemon Institute reveals that external cyber attacks cost enterprises $3.5 million a year and that the majority of security and IT professionals lack the necessary resources and infrastructure to deal with these attacks, despite the growing risks and costs associated with them.

A number of threats were examined in the report including executive impersonations, social engineering exploits and branded attacks that occurred outside of a company’s traditional security boundaries. To address these external threats, security professionals cited an ever-growing need for expertise, technology and external services.

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If your office technologies are not up to today’s standards, millennials are going to dump you. Seriously, almost half (42 percent) of people in that age group are willing to quit their job for this reason. The revelation is made in the Future Workforce Study, released by Dell and Intel.

In it, it says that employees don’t really consider today’s workplaces "smart", even though they believe offices should definitely move in that direction.

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The Industrial Revolution changed society and led to the growth of towns and cities with consequent mass production and movement of population.

Electronics retailer RS Components has produced an infographic looking at how the Internet of Things is leading a move to create a new industrial internet, powered by intelligent machines.

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