For Indian IT, the world has changed seemingly overnight. The biggest existential threat seems to be US President Donald Trump’s proposed immigration reform that could put substantial barriers to Indian IT being able to corner the market on skilled H-1B visas, thereby threatening the lucrative $75 billion or so that it collects in revenue from the US alone. Equally serious is the fact that the traditional outsourcing […]
Qualcomm has announced that its Snapdragon branding will now apply only to premium processors, while those in the 200 tier will be relabelled under the new “Qualcomm Mobile” brand in an effort to differentiate their value — with the chip giant also moving away from processor branding towards “platforms”. “Moving forward, only premium mobile platforms will retain the Snapdragon brand, while processors in the 200 tier will […]
(Image: CNET) The Amazon Echo was the first mass-market, consumer-level device responding to voice control with general purpose functions, such as playing music. It was launched in the US in 2015. Then, in 2016, Google released its competing device, Google Home. Framingham, Mass.-based digital agency Stone Temple collected 5,000 questions to ask both Google Home and Amazon Alexa. Itverbally asked the devices each question and noted many […]
Released on March 3, the Nintendo Switch console has now reportedly managed to push 1.5 million units, which is an impressive figure for its first week, especially considering that Nintendo’s overall sales projection for March is just 2 million. The Nintendo Switch seems set to pass that mark altogether, possibly even sooner than expected. Nintendo Switch Sales Breakdown According to reports, 500,000 Switch units were sold in […]
Sony announced that the PlayStation Now streaming service will soon expand to allow gamers to stream PlayStation 4 titles on their Windows PCs, in addition to the PlayStation 4. PlayStation Now allows subscribers to stream hundreds of PlayStation 3 titles to their PlayStation 4 and Windows PC. With the announcement, PlayStation 4 titles are expected to be added to the service’s catalog soon. What Is PlayStation Now? […]
Microsoft has added LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman to its board of directors. As of Hoffman’s appointment, announced March 14, Microsoft’s board is back up to 12 members.Hoffman is a partner with Greylock Partners. He cofounded LinkedIn in 2002 and before that, was an executive vice president at PayPal. Microsoft purchased LinkedIn last year for $26.2 billion. Earlier this year, Microsoft made Kevin Scott, LinkedIn’s head of engineering, […]
(Image: file photo) Patch Tuesday is back — albeit after an inadvertent and undisclosed glitch led to a month-long delay in releasing security patches. Microsoft said Tuesday that it patched dozens of vulnerabilities across 18 bulletins. read this Why software updates have to get better All too often, security patches are breaking the devices they set out to protect, and trust in the software companies to protect […]
Identity management company Okta has officially filed for an initial public offering, seeking to raise $100 million. The tech IPO scene has been rather sluggish in the past several years, but things are expected to pick up in 2017 and the recent Snap IPO breathed some much-needed new life into the space. Many believe that the Snap IPO opened the door to more tech IPOs and they might just […]
PC shipments in Australia totalled 1.12 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, beating market expectations, according to research firm IDC. The total for the quarter, which included both desktops and tablets, was down year on year by 3.2 percent. However, the decline was an improvement on the forecast 10.2 percent drop. While the first half of last year was affected by Dick Smith’s shutdown, high […]
Recently, the open-source multi-instant messaging (IM) program Pidgin was updated to version 2.12.0. That’s the good news. It’s a very useful program if you work with people using multiple IM services. The bad news is that its developers couldn’t add support to newer IM platforms, such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Slack. Additionally, it will no longer support the deprecated Facebook XMPP, MSN, MySpace, Mxit, and Yahoo. […]
Starting next month, Microsoft will begin offering a preview of an on-premises/local version of its Dynamics 365 for Operations ERP product. Microsoft announced Dynamics 365 for Operations — a rebranding of Dynamics AX 7 and part of the Enterprise version of its newly combined Dynamics 365 CRM and ERP application bundle — in July 2016. At that time, officials said Microsoft would continue to offer on-premises versions […]
Now that a little of the hype has disappeared from the release by WikiLeaks of allegedly more than 8,000 internal CIA documents, and the sorts of hacking the American spy agency was up to, what has changed in the world of security? Unlike the Snowden documents, which fundamentally shook the world of many people with and without an interest in the world of cybers, this cache offers […]
Ransomware has become one of the most notorious threats on the web. Image: iStock No wonder ransomware has become one of the biggest menaces on the web; a third of organisations across the globe which became infected by the file-encrypting malware in the past 12 months gave into the demands of hackers in order to regain access to their locked data. With attacks of this kind being […]
Earlier this week, Microsoft acknowledged that it has been working to bring Windows Server to ARM. But the way this announcement unfolded was rather confusing. Once the dust from the initial wave of press releases cleared, it turned out that Microsoft officially announced that it has been working with Intel, AMD, and two ARM vendors (Qualcomm and Cavium) to support Project Olympus, Microsoft’s next-generation cloud-hardware design it […]
Do you have a network-attached storage (NAS) device holding your accounts payable, document archives, or just your baby photos? If so, you’re running Samba, the open-source file and print server. Now, with the Samba 4.6 release, the program has been given a significant upgrade. Samba, the open-source Linux/Unix file server has gotten a major update. Samba is also often used in Linux and Unix servers to provide […]
My dad bought me a Nintendo to celebrate my first birthday in 1988, despite it being quite obvious the gift was intended for himself. Over the years though, I managed to develop some semblance of motor skills and we began taking turns playing Mario. I bonded with siblings over beating a boss in Zelda and fought with my cousins over who got to play Star Fox next. […]
Historically, the marketing team within an organisation has had little to do with the IT department or the product development team, while the CEO was generally concerned only with the revenue marketing ventures were bringing into the business. According to Steve Lucas, Marketo’s new CEO, the role of the marketer should now be more aligned to a data scientist and they should also be involved in product […]
Google Cloud Platform may not be the only cloud provider in an enterprise, but it’s willing to offer discounts to make sure it gets its share. (Image: Google Cloud/YouTube) Google Cloud Platform rolled out Committed Use Discounts, which are designed to pass along savings to enterprises for a one- or three-year purchase commitment to Google Compute Engine. Special Feature Cloud Computing: Moving to IaaS Infrastructure as a […]
The WikiLeaks-hosted “Vault7” collection of documents allegedly leaked from within the CIA’s Computer Operations Group is a messy mix of jargon, incomplete info, and broken (or redacted) links. The information is interesting, but it’s quite difficult to find a basic description of many of the terms used, even using the search function. So for everybody’s convenience I’ve gone through the whole pile of docs and listed as […]
President Donald Trump has criticized the H-1B skilled-worker visa program as a source of “cheap labor,” and the White House is considering a draft executive order calling for it to be re-examined to protect U.S. workers’ jobs. That’s bad news for technology firms like Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc., which depend on H-1B visas to recruit top foreign talent. It also threatens Indian outsourcing […]
First teased in 2016, the latest version of Microsoft’s Visual Studio has been released on March 7 as a digital download. The company describes its latest integrated development environment as a “faster and more responsive IDE from startup to shutdown.” Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 is used to develop programs for Windows, as well as web apps, websites, mobile apps, and web services. It supports HTML, JavaScript, and CSS […]
DUBAI // The UAE has cracked the top 20 list of countries with the most billionaires for the first time. The Emirates is home to 21 ultra-rich individuals, giving it a ranking of 19, according to the China-based Hurun Global Rich List 2017. “The world today has 5,000 dollar billionaires, assuming that for every one we have found we have missed at least one,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, […]
Google Cloud on Tuesday unveiled a series of steps it’s taking to strengthen its partner program, such as simplifying requirements, creating new partner incentives, and introducing new partner specializations — along with a new collection of partners recognized in those areas. “Google Cloud partners are essential to our commitment to help enterprises innovate faster, scale smarter and stay secure,” Bertrand Yansouni, VP of Google’s Global Partner Sales […]
GoldenEye ransomware targets human resources departments because they’re used to opening emails and attachments from unknown sources. Image: Ali Donzanti What is a ransomware attack? Cybercriminals didn’t use to be so obvious. If hackers infiltrated your corporate network, they would do everything possible to avoid detection. It was in their best interests not to alert a victim that they’d fallen victim to cybercrime. But now, if you […]
