BetaNews Staff

The pros and cons of VoWiFi

There’s no doubt that Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) has captured a lot of attention lately. Indeed, AT&T has announced that it is handling four million VoWiFi calls per day and T-Mobile boasts some 22 million calls per day using the technology.

Today, many enterprises and mobile operators consider VoWiFi an easy and cost-effective way to provide indoor mobile coverage in buildings that block macro mobile signals. However, VoWiFi isn’t suitable for every application and neither do mobile operators want it to be.

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Ways technology is continuing to transform the retail industry

Shopping cart key

From smartphones to the cloud and automation, technology is dramatically changing nearly everything about how we live and work. Technology’s impact can be felt in every industry, but it is especially strong in retail. It used to be that you had to have massive resources and connections to operate in the retail space. These days, thanks to more accessible technology, anyone with an idea and a product can sell via it the Internet and social media. Traditional retail business plans have been thrown by the wayside to make way for the disruptive new ideas of rapid transformation and increased competition, and it’s all thanks to new technology.

The latest technology is rapidly transforming the retail landscape -- here are a few examples:

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HP unveils security solutions for business laptops

HP has just announced a new security solution, called the Sure Start Gen3, and a new laptop series, the EliteBook 800 G4 series. These new notebooks will be shipped with the security solution, which is why HP is calling them the "world's most secure and manageable PC".

The solution handles the computer's BIOS, and makes sure no tampering can occur on that microlevel, whatsoever. "HP Sure Start Gen3 will help prevent such attacks by automatically detecting tampering attempts with the BIOS (both in pre-boot and run-time), notifying the user of a problem and restoring the BIOS to its original pristine condition from a copy stored on a dedicated computer chip. In that sense, it’s self-healing", Hp promises. HP also says this solution works great with Windows 10, as it also protects the data governing BIOS configuration and policy.

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Having mainframe problems? You're not alone

Enterprises that rely on mainframe are having a hard time delivering applications as fast as they need to, a new report by Forrester and Compuware has shown. Nine in ten (90 percent) of enterprises are having these issues, the report says, adding that it is a serious issue, as the majority of new business initiatives include the mainframe.

Almost half (48 percent) have moved some apps off the mainframe, which resulted in security issues, higher costs, poor performance and project delays. More than four in ten (41 percent) are trying to work around the mainframe, resulting in greater complexity, more expenses, double tooling and more security risks.

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UK IT pros believe Brexit will not impact their career

It seems that Brexit fears, at least when IT is concerned, have been largely unsubstantiated. A new report by Dice says IT experts have reasons to feel optimism as they head into 2017, based on a poll of 1,000 tech professionals.

Just under a quarter (22 percent) feel optimistic about the future of the tech job market. More than half (53 percent) don't think Brexit would have a negative impact on their career plans. Almost one in ten (nine percent) are now "much more optimistic". One in five (19 percent) believe Brexit will have a positive impact on the country’s tech sector before 2017 ends.

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Businesses believe IoT can drive customer engagement

Every fifth business is planning on adopting the Internet of things (IoT) to help address customer demand, and improve engagement. This is according to a new report by analytics firm SAS.

These companies are mostly focused on improving front-end processes and efficiency. Only after tackling these issues will they focus on internal processes.

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There's no off switch for IT managers during the holidays

stressed worker

The lack of skilled workers in the IT industry is putting pressure on IT professionals in more ways than we'd previously imagined. A new report, recently released by Unified Security Management and AlienVault says IT managers that will take days off during the holidays will actually spend them worrying about work.

The "good news" is -- less than a third (29 percent) will actually take time off during the holidays. The rest will just keep on working.

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30 easy security tips to keep you safe online

The world of cyber-security presents us with a tangled web of information. 2016 had its fair share cyber security tales and it’s clear that the hackers aren’t slowing down in their attacks.

In our increasingly paranoid online world, we are told what we can and can’t open, when and where we will be hacked, and how the cyber criminals are inescapable. Individuals and businesses are bombarded by the influx of guidelines on how to live their internet lives -- but how can this information be filtered into something tangible for everyday use?

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SAM and IT leaders don't like being audited by Microsoft, Oracle or SAP

Software asset management and IT managers around the world, mostly fear being audited by Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. This is according to a new report, just released by SAM solutions developer Snow Software.

Polling managers worldwide, three quarters (75 percent) say they fear being audited by Microsoft. Just over half (53 percent) say the same for Oracle, and a third (33 percent) about SAP.

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IT heads lack the confidence to fight security threats

security skull

Despite seeing how painful poor cyber-security posture can be on a company, IT decision makers are still skeptical of the funds given to them by upper management to combat the threat, and lack the confidence, too. This is according to a new report by cloud business applications provider Intermedia.

The company surveyed 350 ITDMs, asking questions in four categories: security, general IT services, infrastructure and skilled IT workforce. Overall, the confidence score is 7.2 out of 10, which Intermedia calls "modest" (0 means a company is not confident at all, and 10 means the company is "extremely confident").

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Businesses waste precious time doing paperwork

Too much data

Businesses all over Europe are wasting almost an entire work day (6.8 hours) a week, doing paperwork. A new Adobe report, entitled Document Drain: How Back-Office Processes are Shredding Productivity, says professionals are wasting precious time filling out forms, printing stuff, or chasing signatures all over the company.

The report is based on a poll of 7,000 professionals from all over Europe. This poor practice is slowing down business growth, hurting productivity and wasting precious resources.

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Three security trends that will take off in 2017

Security

Cybersecurity, the Internet of things, driverless cars, artificial intelligence. These topics were hot in 2016, and interest in them should continue strong in 2017. However, the discussions will take new turns. Where will they go?

I predict that three particular trends will gain real momentum and re-shape the cyber landscape in 2017.

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Three technologies to look out for in 2017

looking ahead

I love technology. I’m relentlessly optimistic that software can always be crafted better, and bring more joy. I think this can be achieved through better approaches, better tools, and through better attitudes.

While I don’t quite have a crystal ball, I’ve sat down with the rest of the Red Badger team, here’s a summary of our top three picks for better technology in 2017.

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It's time to put passwords out to pasture

Once again, the world has woken up to news of another huge data breach and another reason that the current password security system for business applications and websites is flawed. This time it was 412 million reasons, this being the number of accounts and user credentials that were exposed following the breach of FriendFinder Networks.

Despite this becoming such a common occurrence, so common that headlines can be saved for "Business name suffers data breach and X number of details have been hacked", the cybersecurity world has not woken up to the real problem or implemented a solution that actually works.

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Five IT predictions for 2017

Technological innovation drives every business, industry and sector -- mostly positively, but not always. 2016 was no exception -- from the first long-haul driverless cargo delivery to automated retail locations to the stiffening competition among ‘smart assistants’ we’re seeing big technological leaps at a breakneck pace.

At the same time, many of the enterprise trends of the last few years are continuing, such as traditional businesses leading big digital transformation and the move to public clouds, with the continued market dominance of Amazon’s $13B AWS business.

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