How much is your internet being censored? Point and click guide
The issue of internet freedom is seldom far from the news at the moment, but exactly how much are the governments in different countries restricting what their web users do?
Online privacy service IVPN has produced an interactive map showing levels of internet censorship around the world. You can simply click on a country to see how it rates.
Traditional development practices don't work for mobile apps
As IT teams face more demands from business units for new mobile applications they'll need to adopt practices that are different from traditional development techniques.
This is according to IT research company Gartner which says that users find it challenging to effectively describe what a mobile app needs to do and therefore the approach of sitting down with a business analyst to define requirements doesn't work.
Silver surfing lessons can help fight dementia
Encouraging the elderly to use the internet can not only help them keep in touch with friends and family and take advantage of the best deals, it can also reduce the likelihood of dementia.
The results of an eight-year study of 6,500 50-90 year-olds reveal that those who regularly go online experience less mental decline compared to those who don't use the internet. The study shows a significant improvement in delayed recall over time for those who were frequent online users, highlighting the role played by the internet in preventing the degeneration of mental abilities in the elderly.
Managed services boost efficiency and cut costs
Using managed services used to mean outsourcing complex IT projects to expensive consultants. Now though thanks to technologies like the cloud they're enabling businesses to focus on their core business while increasing their efficiency, reducing costs and taking advantage of new technologies.
Infrastructure as a service specialist GoGrid has compiled some industry findings that demonstrate the market opportunities and benefits companies can gain by using managed services.
Fast-PATH installer streamlines Hadoop deployments and reduces costs
Though it's one of the most popular big data tools, Hadoop is still evolving and as a result doesn't always have the sophistication of more traditional databases, which can lead to higher support and operation costs.
A new product from big data security specialist Zettaset aims to streamline Hadoop deployment for the enterprise with software automation that eliminates many of the manual configuration processes.
Intellectual property loss affects 21 percent of manufacturing businesses in the past year
In ever more competitive global markets the success or failure of a business can rest on insights and solutions that allow it to operate more efficiently than its competitors.
If this information falls into the hands of a competitor advantage is lost. Yet the results of a new study by Kaspersky Lab show that one in five manufacturing businesses has suffered a loss of intellectual property in the last 12 months.
Clarizen delivers new collaboration features
Work collaboration and project management specialist Clarizen's cloud based platform launched in its latest version, Clarizen v6, last year. Today it's announcing a number of enhancements many of which have been requested by customers.
Changes include new reporting, resource visualization, communication and usability enhancements. Charting changes include the introduction of bubble and scatter charts that can be shared inside and outside the organization. Bubble chart enables a "fourth dimension" with the x and y axis determining the plot location, point color, and the size of each plot point.
Flash! Savior of the enterprise storage market?
From being an expensive technology and something of a niche, flash storage is shifting into the mainstream, particularly in enterprises.
According to new research by IDC, although the technology has been available for a while, the adoption of flash-based storage is only now showing real growth thanks to falling prices and a growing familiarity with the benefits it offers.
myMail becomes most popular alternative email app for Android and iOS
Despite the rise of other forms of communication, email remains one of the most popular options, particularly for business. No surprise then that there’s plenty of choice when it comes to mail apps for your mobile device.
According to data from app analytics company Distimo, the myMail app has passed other options to become the most popular alternative mail app for both Android and iOS, behind only Gmail and Yahoo Mail.
It's a cyber stick-up -- state of infection report reveals rise in ransomware
Ransomware is on the rise according the the latest report from enterprise threat protection specialist Damballa, with an increase in average daily infections of the Kovter infection of 153 percent between April and May this year.
Kovter is "police ransomware" that displays fake legal warnings about pornography. At its peak of activity in June it was recording almost 44,000 infections per day. But while Kovter was thriving CryptoLocker was dealt a blow by the taking down of the GameOver Zeus botnet.
How effective is security software at blocking exploits?
Much of the malware in circulation now focuses on using exploits in popular applications such as browsers and office packages in order to remotely execute code. Security suites and specialized anti-exploit tools are aimed at blocking these but how well do they work?
A new study by testing lab PCSL commissioned by Malwarebytes has set out to find the answer. It looks at the exploit mitigation capabilities of 12 different products: Avast Internet Security, AVG Internet Security, Bitdefender Internet Security, Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit from Microsoft, ESET Smart Security, HitmanPro.Alert3, Kaspersky Internet Security, Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Premium, McAfee Internet Security, Norton Internet Security, Panda Internet Security and Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security.
Secret shopper test reveals the effectiveness of CRM
Recent figures from Gartner put the value of the CRM software market at $20.4 billion. But does it really make a difference when it comes to converting leads into sales?
Sales software specialist Velocify has been trying to find out by using secret shoppers to submit requests through online contact forms to see how quickly companies would respond. The companies included in the study were picked from the customer section of CRM vendors' websites.
Computrace back door could make millions of PCs vulnerable
Almost all recent PCs have Absolute Computrace embedded in their BIOS. It's a product designed to allow companies to track and secure all of their PCs from a single cloud-based console.
But researchers at Kaspersky lab have revealed that it often runs without user-consent, persistently activates itself at system boot, and can be exploited to perform various attacks and to take complete control of an affected machine.
Platform9 launches self-service private cloud
Today's IT managers are under pressure to deliver the sort of agility that's offered by the public cloud but with the security and cost benefits of using existing infrastructure.
California-based startup Platform9 has today unveiled an answer to this problem with its SaaS platform that transforms an organization's existing servers into an AWS-like agile, self-service private cloud within minutes. It significantly reduces the operational complexity for IT and offers a single point of management for Docker, KVM and VMware vSphere.
IT professionals lack confidence in managing compliance
Companies operating in industries like healthcare, financial services and retail inevitably come in for a hard time if they don’t take good care of their data.
Yet a new survey by Dimensional Research for Dell Software shows the rather startling result that almost all of the IT professionals surveys in these industries lack confidence in their organizations' ability to manage governance, risk and compliance.
Ian's Bio
Ian spent almost 20 years working with computers before he discovered that writing about them was easier than fixing them. Since then he's written for a number of computer magazines and is a former editor of PC Utilities. Follow him on Mastodon
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