April 05, 2014

Rumored Android feature: Google Now Bill Pay
With the ability to add various bill payments to Google Wallet, you could then simply say "Okay, Google Now, pay Verizon bill," and Google Wallet would handle the rest. The big question... are we ready for that? Is the average user ready to hand over the payment of their bills to a service like Google Wallet? I think, yes. Why? Already an overwhelming amount of people pay their bills on line. According to Daily Finance, over 62% of Americans pay their bills online. Considering Google has gigantic plans for their payment system (including the ability to use your smartphone in place of your credit/debit card), there's no reason why your various bills could not be easily paid through their system.


Microsoft releases Windows Library for JavaScript as open source
The library features components that can help build the infrastructure of a Web app, such as data binding. It also offers advanced user interface controls and designs such as ListView, FlipView, animations and semantic zoom. Microsoft offers demonstrations of the various features, along with their implementation code, on the WinJS Preview Web site. Gusmorino admitted that work still needs to be done to make WinJS fully compatible with non-Microsoft browsers, such as Firefox and Google Chrome. Some work has already been done to allow WinJS to easily interoperate with other JavaScript libraries, such as Angular, jQuery, and Knockout.


Is Big Data Under Threat by New Internet Magna Carta?
The reputation of big data has suffered with the revelations by wistleblower Edward Snowden that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been systematically using big data analytics to ‘spy’ on everyone’s communications as well as perform targeted surveillance of individuals and companies. We can all be certain that the U.S. is not the only government agency in the world to collect and use big data. For example, former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said "Let's be honest, we eavesdrop too. Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don't have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous.”


XPocalypse Now: Security experts size up the cyberthreats
Windows XP users have managed so far to defend themselves with relative success, so what will be different once Microsoft support ends? Security experts predict a couple of scenarios. The more ominous is that attackers have already developed an arsenal of Windows XP “zero day” exploits, and they’re just waiting until Microsoft support ends to unleash them. While the deadline makes for good drama, some security folks reject the notion that attackers are lying in wait. “If the ‘apocalypse’ were going to happen, don’t you think it would have already happened?” says Andrew Storms, director of DevOps for CloudPassage.


The Truth About Clouds And Data: Can Your Storage Survive Climate Change?
The agility of modular, “grow-as-you-go” storage goes beyond flexible capacity. You can see it in operational efficiency. In days of yore (and maybe even in your days), companies were forced to use proprietary hardware solutions found in legacy storage: solutions that only allowed them to run one application at a time per physical server. Scalable environments, on the other hand, not only use industry standard hardware for just-in-time scaling, but also provide intelligent software to simplify and even automate many operational tasks, including reallocation. This allows providers to run different workloads on shared infrastructures. Such an environment can move with your data, and not just grow with it. Now isn’t that much more cloud-like?


To Motivate Employees, Apply This Scientific Rule Of Leadership
Employees who are selected, oriented, and reinforced properly, and who are surrounded by peers of the same caliber, will thrive when given significant autonomy. Otherwise, they’ll wither. There are dozens of studies to support this, inside and outside of business life. (You may prefer the term “empowerment” to autonomy. That’s fine. I think “autonomy” is the better word because it’s scarier, more blunt. And if what I’m talking about here doesn’t make an old-style autocrat at least a little nervous, then I’m not getting the point across.)


Technology Makes a Difference for Location Analytics
A look at the capabilities necessary for effective location analytics indicates why tools designed for the purpose get better results. More than three in five organizations said three basic capabilities are important: geographic representation of data, visual metrics associated with locations on a map, and selecting and analyzing locations on a map. ...  All of these basic capabilities are the building blocks for conducting specific analytics that can identify or recommend actions from the mashup of data about a location or to provide insights to guide decisions based on location-specific indicators.


Putting the 'B' in BRM
The challenge: Justify to the senior management committee the expense of business relationship management (BRM) within the IT function. Now, there are many ways to do that. All the tools for assessing value can be drawn upon. There's the balanced scorecard, ROI, maturity models (with key performance indicators) and assessments against them, surveys, IT investment ratios, IT productivity over time. All very plausible, given the right circumstances. But as CIO, I knew that I had to do more than show that BRM made compelling sense from a stockholder perspective. I also had to show how its success would be measured over time.


Health Information Technology Safety: Where the Feds Will Focus
The federal government, in its new report on creating a risk-based regulatory framework for health information technology, focuses on the functionality of HIT products, not the platform whether it be cloud-based, installed or mobile. Consequently, the framework from the Food and Drug Administration, Office of the National Coordinator for HIT and Federal Communications Commission identifies three categories of functionality: administrative, health management and medical device functions.


Seven Steps to Create an Unbeatable Enterprise Mobility Strategy
Mobility is transforming our lives. How we bank, shop, entertain, travel, learn, make decisions, and work. We’ve gone from a world that had only 500 million telephone lines in 19901 to one in which there will soon be more active cell phones than people. And as billions of sensors and devices intelligently connect to form the Internet of Things, we’ll access all manner of smart products and services via mobile technology and applications. But, are you ready for the mobility revolution? Consider the following questions to ask:



Quote for the day:

"Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions. This is a dangerous mistake." -- Peter Drucker

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