77600787
submission
itwbennett writes:
In a post on the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) website Thursday, Scott Cunningham, senior vice president of technology of IAB and general manager of its Tech Lab, issued what amounts to an apology for '[losing] track of the user experience' and called on advertisers 'to do better.' But it may be a case of too little, too late as 'a report released in August forecasted that U.S. websites will lose US$21.8 billion in ad revenue this year due to ad blockers,' writes Jeremy Kirk.
77600393
submission
itwbennett writes:
Even though, as reported today on Slashdot, 'experts from government, industry, and academia say they have no confidence they'll develop a secure system that can protect users from tracking and privacy breaches,' a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives have 'proposed that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set up an Automotive Cybersecurity Advisory Council to develop cybersecurity best-practice.' The draft proposal would require vehicle manufacturers to 'develop and implement' a privacy policy outlining their information-gathering practices, and would make vehicle data hacking illegal and subject to a $100,000 penalty for each violation.
77562441
submission
itwbennett writes:
Slashdot readers are no strangers to Oracle's aggressive licensing practices, practices that have earned the notoriety over the years. This week, Texas law firm Scott & Scott wrote a blog post warning enterprises about the 'traps' in Oracle software licensing. One of the biggest problems with Oracle software is how difficult it is for companies to track internally what they're using and how they're using it, said Julie Machal-Fulks, a partner with Scott & Scott, in an interview with Katherine Noyes. 'They may use just one Oracle product and think they're using it correctly, but then Oracle comes along and says, 'no, you're using it wrong — you owe us a million bucks.'
77467817
submission
jfruh writes:
Many startups (and their investors) dream of the cash bonanza that will follow an IPO — but large, mature public company many not have the ability to navigate the industry and make long-term strategic choices once their shareholders start demanding short-term profits. That's one reason why the privately held Dell-EMC combo may be able to outmaneuver its rivals, especially the lumbering, public HP.
77300675
submission
jfruh writes:
Etsy has long been the home for artisans who want a storefront for their cute, handmade items like jewelry and clothes. But as the company has expanded, it's allowed sellers to put partially factory-made items into their inventory. Now they're getting competition from an unlikely place: Amazon, whose new "Handmade At Amazon" store only sells hand-crafted items.
77285953
submission
itwbennett writes:
Peter Smith writes that he 'had more or less written off the Nook when Barnes & Noble farmed hardware duties out to Samsung.' But now that Amazon is aiming for the low end with its downgraded Fire tablet line, Barnes & Noble has an opportunity to 'carve out a niche on the higher end of things,' says Smith. And so it has been quietly moving in that direction. Yesterday, Venture Beat wrote about the newly (and stealthily) launched $250 Samsung Galaxy Tab E Nook. As Smith notes, 'the specs for this new tablet aren't anything special,' which might explain the stealthy launch, except that another, pricier Nook tablet apparently came out a month ago (again, according to VentureBeat), the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 Nook.
77283261
submission
itwbennett writes:
Apple is splitting the manufacture of the A9 processor for its iPhone 6S between TSMC (~60%) and rival Samsung (~40%) — 'and they are not created equal', writes Andy Patrizio. For starters, Chipworks noted that Samsung uses 14nm while TSMC uses 16nm. And a Reddit user posted tests of a pair of 6S Plus phones and found the TSMC chip had eight hours of battery life vs. six hours for the Samsung. Meanwhile, benchmark tests from the folks at MyDriver (if Mr. Patrizio's efforts with Google Translate got it right) also found that the Samsung chip is a bigger drain on the phone's battery, while the TSMC chip is slightly faster and runs a bit cooler. So how do you know which chip you got? There's an app for that.
77260463
submission
itwbennett writes:
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Dell might buy some or all of storage giant EMC (the grain of salt here is that the Journal's report cited unnamed sources, and cautioned that the the companies might not finalize any agreement.) If the report has it right, though, 'a total merger would be one of the biggest deals ever in the technology industry,' writes Stephen Lawson for the IDG News Service, 'with EMC holding a market value of about US$50 billion. It would also bring together two of the most important vendors to enterprise IT departments.'
77210017
submission
jfruh writes:
The average price of a 4GB DDR3 memory DIMM at the moment $18.50 — a price that silicon tech blogger Andy Patrizio calls "just crazy." Why is it so cheap? The memory business tends to go in boom and bust cycles, but the free availability of Windows 10 means that fewer people are upgrading their PCs, reducing RAM demand — and prices might stay low for another two years.
77152777
submission
jfruh writes:
More and more research is suggesting that it isn't safe to text or even talk on our phones hands-free while driving, but one brave car company is pushing full-speed in the other direction. Nissan has created a concept car in which every surface, including the entire dashboard and even the seats, is a display device. The car is the result of "extensive" surveys with the younger generation that came to the conclusion that, according to Nissan, young people "feel that time spent in a car should be time for connecting and sharing experiences with friends."
77000385
submission
itwbennett writes:
Sandra Henry-Stocker’s love affair with Unix started in the early 1980s when she 'was quickly enamored of the command line and how much [she] could get done using pipes and commands like grep.’ Back then, she was working on a Zilog minicomputer, a system, she recalls, that was 'about this size of a dorm refrigerator’. Over the intervening years, a lot has changed, not just about the technology, but about the job itself. 'We might be ‘just' doing systems administration, but that role has moved heavily into managing security, controlling access to a wide range of resources, analyzing network traffic, scrutinizing log files, and fixing the chinks on our cyber armor,’ writes Henry-Stocker. What hasn’t changed? Systems administration remains a largely thankless role with little room for career advancement, albeit one that she is quick to note is ‘seldom boring’ and ‘reasonably' well-paid.
76920867
submission
jfruh writes:
Apple hasn't changed its privacy policy in more than a year — but that didn't stop the company from putting up a glossy website explaining it in layman's terms. Microsoft too has been touting its respect for its users's privacy. This doesn't represent any high-minded altruism on those companies' parts, of course; it's part of their battle against Google, their archrival that offers almost all of its services for free and makes its money mining user data.
76877877
submission
jfruh writes:
Didi Kuaidi is China's biggest native ride-sharing app, and it's using its cash hoard to build an alliance and global giant Uber. On the heels of a $100 million investment in Lyft, the company is also investing in Ola, India's biggest entry in the market. The deals have been described as involving sharing technology and market knowledge.
76877693
submission
jfruh writes:
Nearly 18 million people were victims of identity theft in the U.S. last year — an alarmingly high number that nevertheless has held steady for the last several years. Victims spanned racial groups and income levels, and about 40% had their credit card or bank accounts compromomised.
76872191
submission
itwbennett writes:
Following agreements signed by the EU with South Korea in June 2014 and with Japan in May 2015, the EU and China 'have agreed to agree by the end of the year on a working definition for 5G,' reports Peter Sayer. 'About the only point of agreement so far is that 5G is what we'll all be building or buying after 4G, so any consensus between the EU and China could be significant,' says Sayer.
