Ten (10) Ways To Stay On Top Of Emerging Technologies

The pace of change in the technology sector seems to accelerate at an ever-increasing rate. Here are 10 ways to keep up with new and upcoming technologies.

1: Watch the consumer space

Most of the recent innovation is happening in the consumer space, particularly around what could broadly be called mobile (smartphones, tablets, consumer-oriented cloud services, connected cars, gaming, etc.). It's no longer appropriate to ignore consumer technologies as not "enterprise grade." Everything from the iPhone to personal cloud storage got its start in the consumer space and then migrated to the enterprise. Ignore the consumer space at your peril.

Insider Threats Still Pose Major Problems For Enterprises

A survey sponsored by SpectorSoft shows that insider threats are one of the most challenging security issues to deal with for a majority of enterprises. 

SpectorSoft, a user activity monitoring and analysis software firm, recently commissioned a survey to identify the top issues surrounding "insider threats" and identify some best practices to deal with those threats. The SpectorSoft 2014 Insider Threat Survey revealed some interesting facts about how enterprises are dealing with the challenges associated with insider threats.

One of the most reveling aspects of the survey is that the majority of enterprises can neither detect nor deter insider threats, making them especially vulnerable to fraud, data breaches, and intellectual property theft. The survey, which tallied the opinions of some 355 IT professionals, showed that some six in ten respondents are not adequately prepared to deal with insider threats.

Bionic Arm Restores Sense of Feeling

Igor Spetic and his new prosthetic hand

Advances in bionic hands have restored a sense of touch to two patients for more than a year, report US scientists.

The men can now delicately pluck the stalks out of cherries.
Sensors on the artificial hand are used to send signals directly to the nerves, the study, published in Science Translational Medicine, said.
Meanwhile, a Swedish team has made a separate breakthrough in artificial limbs - anchoring bionic arms directly on to the bone to improve control.

Facebook Messenger to Introduce Mobile Payments System

Facebook’s expansion continues as the company looks set to introduce a mobile payments system on its messenger app.
Screenshots taken by iOS developer Andrew Aude reveal how Facebook users can add a credit or debit card to their account and send money via messages. Transfers appear as though they need to be verified by a pin.

Aude tweeted: “With Facebook Messenger, you attach money like you attach a photo or a location. You don’t even have to link a bank account!”
Jonathan Zdziarski, an iOS forensics expert, also tweeted about possible payments on Facebook.

Keep Your Phone Data Secure With This New Smartphone Charging Cable

Learn about a smartphone charging cable intended to back up your smartphone data privately and securely. 

Even amidst a busy Labor Day weekend of travel and barbecues many of us heard about the recent leaked celebrity photo scandal. My colleague Jordan Golson covered it earlier this week and, though details are still vague, he stated that it appeared a possible iCloud vulnerability allowed hackers to use numerous passwords to obtain illegal access to the cloud storage accounts of various actresses (which were obviously not well protected with complex passwords). What happened next is not a happy ending for the celebrities involved.

First IT Jobs Went Offshore, Now They're Being Automated

The US and European IT roles that were pushed to offshore service providers will increasingly be automated, as the outsourcing giants look to preserve their margins.

By 2016 almost 1.1 million IT jobs are expected to have been sent offshore by major US and European companies.
The drive to send jobs abroad has, in part, been fuelled by low labour costs relative to western countries, with recent entry-level salaries for engineers in India falling between $4,200 and $5,900.

Nokia Maps To Appear On Samsung Phones

A version of Nokia's Here mapping service is being prepared for the Gear S watch

Nokia's mapping service will soon be appearing on Samsung smartphones.

A deal between the two will see a test or beta version of an Android app for Nokia's Here maps included free on handsets and the Gear S smartwatch.

The move is widely seen as a way to help Samsung distinguish itself from Google which oversees Android.

Formerly known as Nokia maps, Here is also used by Yahoo, Amazon and Garmin and it provides map data for Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Google 'discourages' Users Of Old Browsers

 

The change forced many to use an old version of the Google homepage

Google has started showing old versions of its search page to people using out-of-date versions of some web browsers.

At the weekend, many people reported in a Google forum they were seeing 2013 versions of the Google and image search homepages when using older browsers.

The problem was most pronounced among those using variants of Safari 5.1 and Opera 12.
A Google message posted to the forum said the change was made to "encourage" people to upgrade their browser.

Charging iPhone Burns Woman’s Breast

According to reports, the 24-year-old mother of one was left with serious infection from a painful inch burn and there’s fear that she might be unable to breast feed again should she have another child.

 

Apple Recalls iPhone 5s For Battery Woes

Certain iPhone 5 smartphones are eligible for free battery replacements, Apple says.

Having trouble with your iPhone 5 battery? You might be eligible for a free replacement.

Apple (AAPL, Tech30) said "a very small percentage" of iPhone 5 smartphones may "suddenly experience shorter battery life or need to be charged more frequently."

Don't get too excited just yet. After a year or two, everyone's iPhone battery seems to carry less juice than it once did. But Apple's repair program is limited to certain customers in the United States and China.

Ten (10) Ways To Advance Your IT Career

Worried that your IT career might stall out? These 10 practical strategies can help you achieve your goals as an IT pro. 

When I talk with up-and-coming IT'ers, I sometimes encounter a sense of fatalism. It's as if they feel their jobs are preordained and they'll be assigned to a "dungeon job" forever. It is a mistake to think that way, because there are many steps you can take to advance your career and your understanding of IT, regardless of the situation that you find yourself in.

Here are 10 things you can do to develop your IT career.

Plan to skip Windows 8? Get your Windows 7 exit strategy ready now

Organisations should be planning what their next OS should be after Windows 7 - and in many cases they may want to bypass Windows 8. 

Companies should start planning their upgrade from Windows 7 now - and perhaps also how to give Windows 8 a miss.

It may be six years before Windows 7 support is withdrawn but firms had longer to prepare for the end of XP support and nearly a quarter of PCs in organisations were still running the venerable OS after support ended, said Stephen Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner.

"The end of support for Windows 7 will be January, 2020, assuming there are no changes to its current support life cycle. While this feels like it's a long way off, organisations must start planning now, so they can prevent a recurrence of what happened with Windows XP," said Kleynhans.

Google Turns In A User For Allegedly Possessing Criminal Material

Find out how Google detected illegal activity on their systems and how they responded to the discovery. 

The lines between good and bad don't get much clearer than this. It was recently reported that Google alerted the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) when they detected evidence of alleged child pornography being sent via a user's Gmail account. The NCMEC then contacted local police and the user, a Houston Texas resident previously convicted of sexual assault, was subsequently arrested after child pornography was found on devices that he owned.

Very few law-abiding citizens would object to such a measure, but nevertheless, the comments on various news sites, Facebook, and other sources began heating up almost immediately:

Android is Winning The Platform Race

As a long-time supporter and user of open source, it gives me great pride to say this:

Android is outselling everyone. Period. End of story. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a story if I simply ended it with that. The numbers don't lie, but there's more to it than just that. With that statement, it's easy to assume I'm speaking of mobile platforms and that Android is crushing iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Fire OS, and the rest of the platforms that power smartphones and tablets.

But no. It's much, much more impressive than that. Android is outselling:

• Windows
• OS X
• Linux
• Amiga
• OS/2

Microsoft Stays Committed To Ultra-Cheap Phones

The Nokia 130 can play videos and MP3 music files on its 1.8in (4.6cm) screen

 

Microsoft has announced a low cost mobile phone that lacks a data connection, meaning it cannot offer any of the firm's internet services.

The Nokia 130 is priced at 19 euros ($25; £15).
The launch comes a month after a leaked memo revealed that Microsoft planned to kill off several of its low-cost phone families to "focus on" its more expensive Windows Phone range.

But the firm said that it was still committed to its most basic range.

"This is a massive market segment, and there are not a lot of players in this segment for the reason that scale is really important," Jo Harlow, head of Microsoft's phones business, told the BBC.

On Your Side: Samsung Cell Phone Fire

A 13-year-old North Texas girl was awoken in the night by a smoldering cell phone on the other side of her pillow, but the cell phone manufacturer says she did something they warn users about.  

Ariel Tolfree loves using her Samsung Galaxy S4.

“It's really like, nice and pretty,” said Tolfree. “It's high tech.”

Every chance she gets, she texts her friends and gets on social media apps like Instagram and Twitter.

But during FOX 4’s visit with her, she had to borrow her dad's S3 phone, because her phone is burned so badly, it's barely recognizable.

Obiano’s CCTV Security Gadget Records Success at Onitsha Market

The close circuit television (CCTV) mounted in the Onitsha Market axis as part of the secu­rity arrangements to en­sure sustenance of peace and adequate security in Onitsha and parts of Anambra State has led to a breakthrough in the tracking and reunifica­tion of two children who lost contact with their mother after a busy mar­ket day.

World's Biggest Laser Blasts Diamond to Simulate Planet Cores

The biggest laser in the world was used to crush a diamond, offering insights into how the hardest known material behaves when it is exposed to extremely high pressures. The experiment could also reveal new clues about what happens at the cores of giant planets, where conditions of intense atmospheric pressures exist.

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, led by physicist Raymond Smith, blasted a sliver of diamond with a laser beam at a pressure of 725 million pounds per square inch (51 million kilograms per square centimeter). This is the kind of pressure found near the core of giant planets, such as Jupiter or huge, rocky bodies known as "super-Earths."

Dota2: Chinese Team Wins $5m Gaming Prize

The online arena game pits two teams of five heroes against each other

Chinese team NewBee has taken home $5m in prize money after winning the world's most lucrative gaming contest. 

The International pits the best players of a game called Dota2, created by developer Valve, against each other.
NewBee defeated rival Chinese team Vici Gaming to win the title.
The total prize money was $10.9m, with the runners-up getting $1.4m, and $4.5m distributed among the other 19 teams taking part in the tournament, which began on 18 July in Seattle.

Microsoft Announces 18,000 Job Cuts in Largest Layoff in Company's History

Microsoft has announced that it will axe 18,000 jobs in its largest round of cuts ever.
The majority of these losses, some 12,500 positions, will be dropped from Nokia’s Devices and Services business, which the company acquired for $5 billion earlier this year.