2016, Where is the IT Workforce Headed?
Over the years the global workforce has adapted and evolved to suit the various needs of the market and in turn the society. So, the big question is where are we headed? What does the future have in store for us? I begin by quoting Ray Kurzweil “By the time we get to the 2040s, we’ll be able to multiply human intelligence a billion-fold. That will be a profound change that’s singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter.” Needless to say, technology has taken center stage and would continue to do so, the point is how fast we would be at picking up the latest trends and implementing them successfully. The Global IT market is assumed to have crossed $ 3.8 trillion in 2016.
Robotic process automation is killer app for cognitive computing
By injecting RPA with cognitive computing power, companies can supercharge their automation efforts, says Schatzky, who analyzes the implications of emerging technology and other business trends. By combining RPA with cognitive technologies such as machine learning, speech recognition, and natural language processing, companies can automate higher-order tasks that in the past required the perceptual and judgment capabilities of humans. Some leading RPA vendors are already combining forces with cognitive computing vendors. Blue Prism, for example, is working with IBM’s Watson team to bring cognitive capabilities to clients. And a recent Forrester report on RPA best practices advised companies to design their software robot systems to integrate with cognitive platforms.
Datacentre industry faces looming skills crisis as need to replace retiring engineers grows
“We need to fill this funnel with new people, but the question is: where on earth are we going to find them?” The challenge is particularly acute because it is not a case of replacing like for like, as new entrants to the market will need to be well-versed in both mechanical engineering and IT matters, said Hannaford. “Anyone who runs datacentres knows that people who come to a datacentre are, nine times out of 10, looking to deploy cloud applications,” he said. “So you can talk until you’re blue in the face about how low your PUE is, but what they really want to know about is connectivity and how they can use your cloud. So you need people from the datacentre companies and providers who understand IT as well.”
The History Of Wearable Technology – Past, Present And Future
The 80’s and the 90’s are the times of the so-called “commercial pioneering” in wearable computing. In fact, the first wearable devices with mass market impact arrived in the late 70’s. One of the first wearables with real commercial success was the calculator watch, launched by Hewlett-Packard in 1977. ... Speaking about smartwatches, the history of wearable technology cannot ignore the Japanese company Casio and its “fashion statement,” at that time, the “Databank” watch. It was so influential that the Police lead singer Sting wore one in the making of the song “Wrapped Around Your Finger” and Michael J. Fox showcased his watch too, in the movie “Back to the Future.”
Close Common Security Holes with Azure Security Center
Unfortunately, anyone who’s ever been involved with a minor, medium or major security incident knows it’s the “low hanging fruit” that gets overlooked that ends up creating the security hole that lets the attacker in. Attackers take advantage of easy exploits against easy to fix security issues – and while the security issues are easy to fix, too often the fixing doesn’t happen. We can have a major impact at reducing the risk of compromise if we can find a solution, a tool, a service that makes it easy to quickly find and remediate these common security holes. Azure Security Center is one of those solutions. To demonstrate that, let’s look at a collection of “easy to fix” security issues that when they’re not fixed, bad things can happen.
Microsoft HoloLens, hands-on: What it's like to wear the future
The current model only allows you to see the virtual images through a limited 'letterbox' directly in front of you. Look the wrong way or let the headset move position and you can lose them, which means it's not as immersive as other technologies that fill the whole field of vision. As the technology improves, that letterbox is likely to get bigger. Even so, my initial response was to be wowed: this is what science fiction has been telling us the future should look like for decades -- bright, crisp, impossible images right before your eyes. The headset itself is too heavy and cumbersome -- but again that's likely to change quite rapidly. Think of the difference between the first mobile phones and the smartphone in your pocket today.
The Importance of Embracing Customer Data in Tandem with Trust
When it comes to using sensitive data to enhance customer communications, we have to remember that people have decided to confidentially submit information to us as brands and in return they'd like some information back about products or services related to that information, and we have to provide that confidentiality back to them when it pertains to sensitive data. Consumer trust has a massive impact on brand reputation. Customers come to rely on brands known for taking security seriously and conversely, are less likely to trust brands that have had known security breaches. Targeted marketing is all about identifying a specific audience. We have to consider not only the positive impacts of our marketing efforts, but also the unintended or potentially negative impacts.
Gartner’s top cybersecurity ‘macro trends’ for 2017
Paying the security tax. Answering to Dr. No. Submitting to the control centre. If you’ve ever been responsible for running IT security at a business, these will all sound familiar – too familiar. But there’s another way to look at security, says Earl Perkins, a research vice-president in the Internet of Things group at Gartner. Presenting at the research firm`s symposium in October, he spoke of cybersecurity trends to look out for in the year ahead. He also had some helpful advice on how to frame cybersecurity as a benefit to your organization, rather than be viewed as a hindrance. “We’ve been playing a poker game for decades,” Perkins says. “We’ve been betting just enough chips on security and now we’re hoping the hand we hold will be enough to win.”
Are we drowning in a sea of negative security press?
The volume of new vulnerabilities, exploits and exposures seems to be increasingly impacting those inside and outside of the security world. For the consumer and nontechnical business person, the overwhelming volume of bad security news is causing "security fatigue," as identified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in a recent study. The study shows that people become so overwhelmed with news about vulnerabilities and security issues, they in many cases surrender and accept a less secure existence. For those of us in the information security industry, the effect is somewhat different. We tend to wake up in the morning feeling like we are fighting a losing battle. We tend to be busy remediating a vulnerability discovered weeks ago, even as five new ones are reported.
Intel Security warns window to address Internet of Things security is rapidly closing
“The problem here is that the consumers who owned the devices that were breached weren’t really negatively impacted,” she indicated. “The real victim was usually somebody else. But in the next phase of attacks, the attack could bring ransomware, which would have direct impacts.” Wigle said that Intel Security is responding to this by protecting across the threat defense lifecycle, which with the IoT, is manifested in a couple different ways. “First, it means taking full advantage of what we can build into processors and SoCs and putting the right software on top of it,” she said. “Being able to determine actual device identity will be fundamentally important for the IoT. “The other thing different about the IoT that needs to be comprehended is that they interact with the physical world – like oil pipelines,” Wigle stated.
Quote for the day:
"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal." -- Henry Ford
