Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

February 08, 2015

20th-century solutions won’t help 21st-century surveillance
The speed with which the public could migrate to a new coder’s NextApp would up the stakes for the kind of enforcement you’d have to do for your proposed requirement to have any impact. Indeed, you’d have to constrain the application ecosystem itself. To be sure, you might have a better chance at it today — in a world of app marketplaces run by Apple and Google, who can impose their own restrictions on software — than ten years ago, when software traveled directly from one machine to another with a simple click.

DJ Patil has joined the White House to wrangle data issues
Patil is one of the biggest figures in the data science movement, often crediting for coining the term data scientist. In 2012, Patil co-authored the Harvard Business Review article calling data scientist the sexiest job of the 21st century, helping to spark a hiring frenzy of people with an understanding of data analysis, systems and business concerns. We’ve reached out to Patil for comment, and will update the story as we learn more. We’ll discuss how another government body, the Federal Trade Commission, plans to deal with the issue of data privacy at Structure Data (March 18-19 in New York) when FTC Commissioner Julie Brill chats on stage with Gigaom legal expert Jeff Roberts.

React.js in Real Life at Codecademy
In short: React is a library for building user interfaces with JavaScript. Instead of the usual approach to writing user interfaces, React treats each UI element as a contained state machine. It is not a "framework" in the sense of something like AngularJS. Though Facebook sometimes describes React as "the V in MVC," I find this description less helpful, since React applications needn't abide by the MVC model. React helps you build fast user interfaces that can handle complex interactions without a lot of ugly code. If you're going to be working in React, you should be aware of these features:

Visualizations of Continuous Delivery
Nhan Ngo, a QA engineer at Spotify, made four fabulous visualizations while reading Continuous Delivery. She has very kindly agreed to make them available under a Creative Commons license so feel free to share them, download them, and print them out (click to get a higher resolution version). Thank you Nhan!

New Generation of Learning Management Systems Delivers Business Value
Learning management systems have existed in various forms for many years, yet the research finds that a significant number of organizations participating in this research have not adopted this technology. Although nearly two in three (63%) have a training department responsible for learning management, only about half (53%) have a learning management system. Moreover, a formal approach to learning management correlates with size of company: The numbers of those that have a training department rise at each size level, from 25 percent of small organizations to 100 percent of very large ones.

Windows 10 is a New Chapter for Microsoft
Microsoft is working to maintain and expand the role for Windows and Windows is being positioned as the best way to experience many of Microsoft’s other products and services. For Microsoft, Windows 10 is not just another OS upgrade, but rather a transition to a new Windows experience. Microsoft uses terms like personal, connected, and cross-device, to describe this experience. However fundamentally it is about trust. Microsoft aims to provide a secure, reliable, and consistent experience for Windows users regardless of type of device they are using. Microsoft has much to prove in this regard and it will take time and spot-on execution to establish this new message in the minds of users.

The End of the Public Cloud’s Reign
The public cloud is not for everyone and that fact is bringing an end to the public cloud’s reign as we know it. The public cloud’s massive growth and popularity was a bubble that was built upon public Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) being promoted as the ultimate IT solution for most, if not all, companies. Unfortunately, for the proponents of public cloud omnipotence, the demand for undifferentiated or unsupported IaaS seems to be waning, with cloud-savvy businesses seeking a combination of managed cloud services, private cloud or colocation rather than pure public cloud solutions.

R for Everyone: Advanced Analytics and Graphics
The most sophisticated analysis in the world would be near useless if the information it reveals cannot be communicated effectively and visualization is, perhaps, the best way to share information. A graph will almost always provide a better explanation than a table of numbers. One of the biggest selling points of R is its visualization capabilities. For years the gold standard was ... With the move toward web graphics Hadley built ggvis, which is essentially a version of ggplot2 that generates Vega graphs. Ramnath Vaidyanathan wrote rCharts for easy creation of D3 graphics from within R. With all these options R makes data visualization easy and professional.

My experience driving the new Audi 4G LTE connected car
Audi’s connected car experience includes the My.Audi website for configuring features and a mobile app (iOS and Android) for syncing and streaming to the onboard MMI connect system. The My.Audi.com website is where you activate and configure MMI features and services, including destinations and access, map updates, RSS feeds, Facebook and Twitter, via widgets, and this can take time. New features may be introduced on the website, via app updates and/or firmware updates to the car’s MMI system via LTE connection (or SD card updates, e.g., map updates).

Invite Enterprise Architecture to the Digital Party
Since enterprise digital transformation efforts involve organizational, process, and technology changes that better connect the customer to the technology systems of record, formulating the best way of accomplishing the goals of digital sounds like a perfect application of enterprise architecture. Only most organizations don’t see this connection – for a number of possible reasons. First, the existing EA effort may not be focused on broad-based business improvement at all. All too often EAs like Bob get buried in the IT department. Their focus ends up on technology concerns, which are important to be sure, but the connection to the business is tenuous at best.

Quote for the day:

"Surround yourself with great people; delegate authority; get out of the way" -- Ronald Reagan

February 07, 2015

The enterprise CIO is moving to a consumption-first paradigm
Enter the consumption-first paradigm. Whereas past IT organizations needed to take a build-first methodology out of necessity, today there is a better option. Today, organizations can move to a consume-first paradigm. Within the paradigm, applications and services are evaluated through a consume-first methodology. If the application/ service is not a good fit, then it moves to a configure-first methodology. If all else fails, it falls to build-first. But the goal here is to consume as much as possible without having to build or configure. The evaluation process is as important as changing the paradigm. It is critical to clearly understand what is strategic and differentiating for the company. That then becomes a hallmark for guiding which components present the greatest opportunity for focus and leverage.

Is Social Media Recruiting Dead?
"One key to leveraging the value and reach of social media is to evolve as the technology does," says Kasper. At its core, social recruiting is about going where your audience is, and especially with the millennial generation of job seekers, that can mean many different social media platforms. "Even if some networks might become less popular with the younger workforce, new channels like Instagram or Snapchat are popping up to provide new avenues of engagement for recruiters. As social media evolves, so will social recruiting," Kasper says. That also means spreading out your recruiting efforts using all the technology available, like mobile and even email.

How Intel will embrace the 'delightful chaos' of Internet of Things
Curie represents what is possible for computing in the future, with chips that small being used to power wearable devices and all sort of other objects, Smith said in a visit to CNET's New York office Wednesday. For Intel, which dominates the business of supplying chips to personal computers, the company is eager to search for the next big market to return it to the days of heady growth. But despite all the hype around wearables and IoT, the story of this nascent market is yet unwritten. "What we see in that segment of the market, the Internet of Things, there's lots of innovation going on," Smith said. "If anybody tells you they know who's going to be the winner three years from now, they're making it up, because nobody knows.

Personal Data Stolen Sells for 10X Price of Stolen Credit Card Numbers
The price differential is due to the ability to use identity information – birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses, employment information, income, etc. – to open new credit accounts on an ongoing basis rather than exploiting just one account until it’s canceled. But that’s not all. “The information attackers were able to access from Anthem are key pieces of data that can be used to access someone’s financial records,” says Eric Chiu, president & co-founder of Hytrust, making it possible to find and drain individuals’ personal cash reserves.

Integration of Big Data Involves Challenges
New types of big data technologies are being introduced to meet expanding demand for storage and use of information across the enterprise. One of those fast-growing technologies is the open source Apache Hadoop and commercial enterprise versions of it that provide a distributed file system to manage large volumes of data. The research finds that currently 28 percent of organizations use Hadoop and about as many more (25%) plan to use it in the next two years. Nearly half (47%) have Hadoop-specific skills to support big data integration. For those that have limited resources, open source Hadoop can be affordable, and to automate and interface with it, adopters can use SQL in addition to its native interfaces; about three in five organizations now use each of these options.

Data Mining Interview: Dr. A. Fazel Famili
In the early days of data mining work, especially applied data mining projects, our challenge was to educate owners of data what data mining was, what would be the advantages of companies opening the door and providing us with their data and access to real-world data. Nowadays, one of the biggest challenges is to make sure that we have access to and understand (properly choose) the attributes that influence the problem that we are investigating. For example, if we our goal is to predict the potential failure of a component in a complex system for which we have access to hundreds of parameters, unless the particular parameter(s) that are associated with the problem are included in our data,

Guidance Regarding Methods for De-identification
This page provides guidance about methods and approaches to achieve de-identification in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule. The guidance explains and answers questions regarding the two methods that can be used to satisfy the Privacy Rule’s de-identification standard: Expert Determination and Safe Harbor1. This guidance is intended to assist covered entities to understand what is de-identification, the general process by which de-identified information is created, and the options available for performing de-identification.

Hybrid Cloud Turns IT from a Cost Center into a Revenue Center
There has already been great progress in approaches to federation and interoperability, which are helping to improve hybrid cloud’s cohesion. Some recent progress in building more interoperable cloud environments include the entry of Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) into OpenStack, the leading open source cloud platform (more on the progress of this effort here). SAML enables single sign-on for Web properties, which makes B2B and B2C transactions much easier. Integrating this into OpenStack-powered clouds allows them to more easily federate with other cloud environments, ultimately giving cloud buyers more hybrid options.

“Cyberspace” must die. Here’s why
The need to abandon the false digital dualism embodied in the term “cyberspace” (hat tip to Nathan Jurgenson and PJ Rey) becomes more urgent as everyday items become connected to the internet. To appreciate how anachronistic the word has become, consider whether your fitness tracker or smart thermostat exists in cyberspace or the real world. When leaked NSA documents talked about strong decryption capabilities as the “price of admission for the U.S. to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace,” that wasn’t about mastering Neuland. It was about being able to access and exploit the entire connected world, smart homes and all.

The Role of Containers in Modern Applications
With few moving parts having to be deployed with the application, the application becomes easier to support in a production setting. Of course, this is predicated on the fact that the service provider and the service is highly reliable. For example, many applications deployed with Docker will contain its own MySQL instance versus leveraging the MySQL RDS service from Amazon. The latter provides redundancy, availability, backup, etc. all as part of the service, but if deployed as a traditional n-tier application using Docker, all those non-functional requirements continue to burden the operations groups.

Quote for the day:

"The more you criticize , the more you will recognize other's limitations." --@ShawnUpchurch

February 04, 2015

Enterprise Security – You Get What You Pay For
A free enterprise security solution will never pack the right set of features to manage your endpoints (whether 50 or 50,000). The only benefits a free enterprise solution has to offer are an anti-malware feature, probably some web-filtering capabilities, and a VPN (best case scenario). Is that enough? Any company that truly wants to secure its infrastructure, intellectual property, and other significant data knows that a free enterprise security solution won’t cut it. Sure, you might have an anti-malware engine running some heuristics, but what happens when you want to do more than just run an antivirus solution on those endpoints?

Continuous Delivery: From Theory to Practice
Monitoring deployments is a whole bible unto itself, and so it would be too lengthy to discuss this in detail. However the focus on this is probably the most important factor, since the ability to deploy 1000 times a day is worthless if you are unable to monitor how these changes affect your system. Since, let’s be honest, you’re not looking to deploy new features a thousand times a day, deploying a thousand times a day gives you the ability to fix things really fast and make small changes quickly. That’s why you need to have the entire process set up in such a way that enables you to quickly understand exactly what’s going on in your system - and only then will you have the ability to deploy as many times as you want.

The Proxy is the App
The proxy is the app, for all intents and purposes, because it is the only public interface seen by the app whether that's a native mobile or browser-based app. The proxy is able to provide visibility and security as well as performance-related services on behalf of the "app" because it effectively becomes the app itself. It provides the app routing functionality required to ensure a request to "login" goes to the "login service" while a request to "checkout" goes to the "checkout service" while mediating with the client to ensure performance and security requirements are met.

Experience from the University of Wisconsin-Madison IoT Lab
The IoT Lab has adopted a novel approach for successfully engaging students. It has fostered participation by dozens of undergraduate and graduate students (a large fraction being women) representing a range of disciplines including not only engineering and computer science, but also other “non-technical” disciplines such as business, human ecology (retailing and consumer sciences), nursing, economics, journalism and mass communications, mathematics, physics, statistics, and philosophy. There are several key insights that we have gained through our experience in engaging students with IoT. Here are two:

Ford drives scheduling with artificial intelligence
Here's how it works: If the company hires someone freshly out of college, they need to work rotational job assignments. He or she gets three different jobs in the first three years at Ford. "Ford has all these other opportunities in IT that we can do and in college you don't really think about it," said Kinnaird-Heether. "It gives you business acumen and helps you understand what positions are at the company and you have a better idea of what you want to do with the company." As more people joined, it became increasingly difficult for managers to fit workers into the right jobs, taking into account seniority and participants' own assignment preferences.

How to prioritise your Big Data Analytics use cases
Big Data Analytics is considered by some an innovation, and others an evolution. Whatever your position on that point, one thing for sure is that the technology behind it keeps evolving….fast. Hence the need for the fourth dimension of this pentagon:Technology. Use cases which require a Big Data technology that wouldn’t be part of your stack are definitely worth considering. Why? Because those cases will help the evolution of your Big Data technology ecosystem. It will also make it better performing, reliable, efficient, and redundant.

10 reasons why working in the office work beats telecommuting
Plenty of pundits have examined this trend and decided the office is a dead man walking. But if remote work is indeed going to kill office work, get ready for a tough time. Remote work can be hard, both for workers and their managers. Even if the employer has a good flexible working policy and the employee has the right skills for remote work, there are downsides to working from home. Why all the talk of the death of the office? Here are 10 shining examples of how onsite work trumps remote work.

5 ways a CIO can make a real difference to users
It seems that at most companies, CIOs play nothing but defense, worrying about malware attacks, ERP integration, financial reporting, rogue users, and licensing changes. But you can't win if you only play defense, especially in companies that rely on people to create, develop, and sell the products and services that make money. ... Yet in too many companies, CIOs and their IT organizations stay in the data center, avoiding user needs and opportunities. If CIOs spend a little effort on user-facing technology change, I bet they would become the kinds of key execs that most aspire to. Here are some simple projects that CIOs can initiate to matter in their company's technology offense.

Aeris and Tech Mahindra to launch carrier IoT platform
The platform will expand carrier service offerings to included packaged apps for key vertical systems, such as fleet and asset management, insurance and so on. It will also include a locally deployed technology platform for delivering managed device connectivity services; specialised system operations and support services; go-to-market planning support services; and an internet-scale device data analytics infrastructure. Device, customer and billing data will reside in the operator’s home country, keeping delivery costs low and reducing regulatory concerns in some markets.

Dangerous IE flaw opens door to phishing attacks
The flaw, described as a universal cross-site scripting vulnerability, was disclosed Saturday on the Full Disclosure mailing list by David Leo, a researcher with a security consultancy firm called Deusen. Leo's post included a link to a proof-of-concept exploit that demonstrates the attack using the dailymail.co.uk website as the target. When opened in Internet Explorer 11 on an up to date installation of Windows 8.1, the exploit page provides the user with a link. When the link is clicked, the dailymail.co.uk website opens in a new window, but after 7 seconds the site's content is replaced with a page reading "Hacked by Deusen."

Quote for the day:

"Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned." -- Harold Geneen

February 03, 2015

TOGAF – A New Year Message
Of course, as well as all the commercial aspects of feasting, drinking, visiting and present giving, there is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. This dichotomy – between the spiritual and the commercial – got me thinking about the connection between TOGAF and EA. You’re probably thinking that I must be crazy, and that there can’t be any connection between Christmas and TOGAF… and there isn’t a direct link. So what’s my point? Well, TOGAF has become a de-facto “standard” approach to EA. This is partly because there are few international organizations with the infrastructure to establish a new discipline, such as enterprise architecture.

Radware CEO on Identifying Intruders
Often, security software relies on digital signatures to identify unauthorized access into systems, matching the signature against those used by known hackers. But in an Executive Sessions interview with Information Security Media Group, Zisapel explains that the quick-acting digital assailant often relies on a signature that has yet to be added to the libraries of known exploited signatures. "[That's] simply because it's new, it was not seen before," Zisapel says. Instead, he says, Radware is incorporating behavioral analytics and similar techniques into its products to identify intruders.

Defining Metrics for the Service Desk
Every organization is different and the examples in a book or a blog are just there to help you think about possibilities, not to be used unchanged. You also need to keep reviewing your KPIs, as the things you care about will change over time and KPIs that worked well for you in the past may no longer be relevant. Remember the “K” in KPI stands for key, so you should focus on key things that are important to you; you should not measure and report every number you can. You also need a clear understanding of your objectives, and the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) that are needed to achieve those objectives. Every KPI should support one or more of these objectives or CSFs.

Microsoft's Windows 10 for IoT: What to expect
The Windows 10 mobile SKU will run on both Intel- and ARM-based tablets and phones, according to that same slide. (I believe is the coming version of Windows 10 for Windows Phones and small tabletsthat is due to go to preview in February.) The Compact/Athens SKUs, which also run on both Intel- and ARM-based devices, is for resource-constrained devices that need to run Universal Apps. The next version of the .Net Micro Framework, designed for wearables, small sensors and equipment like vending machines. The Windows 10 IoT operating system versions are expected to be built on the new common core (OneCore), share the common Windows 10 Runtime and be available via the coming, unified Windows Store.

Startup Eero wants to wipe out weak Wi-Fi
"Instead of one powerful device blasting a signal everywhere, you need to break it up into smaller pieces and distribute it throughout the home," Weaver said. To succeed, Eero will have to convince people that they need an upgrade to their current networks. With even premium routers costing less than $200, some persuading will be necessary. The sales pitch will likely appeal to folks who are envisioning range extenders that use Wi-Fi or home powerline networks to reach better throughout a home -- in short, the people who already think their Wi-Fi isn't up to scratch. Eero also can take heart that customers are showing some willingness to buy premium electronic gadgets like Philips Hue remote-controlled light bulbs, Drobo storage systems and Nest Learning Thermostats.

MongoDB Eyes Bigger, Faster NoSQL Deployments
MongoDB 3.0's new pluggable architecture addresses write-intensive applications, but that's just a start. The 3.0 release includes two new storage engine options. The first is WiredTiger, which was acquired (for an undisclosed sum) along with the company of the same name. WiredTiger supports write-intensive use-cases common in mobile, Internet-of-Things, smart-grid, log-file-analysis, and other modern applications. "It has become incredibly inexpensive to create data with smart phones, messaging, smart grids, log files, and so on, and it's only natural that companies are trying to turn that information into money," said Kelly Stirman, MongoDB's director of products.

Can We Actually Confront Data Quality With Business Intelligence?
The first thing we have to understand and unconditionally accept is that it’s next to impossible to have perfect data quality. The bigger the organization, the more likely there will be issues with its data. The more complex the organization is in terms of divisions, sub divisions, data collection methods, etc., the more likely it will have data quality issues. From my experience in the BI industry, the bigger something is—or the more moving parts something has—the less likely everything will run smoothly. Data quality is no exception – period. This is the reality and unless you have unlimited time with an unlimited budget, it’s foolish to expend great energy for 100% perfect data.

Recycle that old Android device into a web-based security camera
There are so many reasons why you might need a security camera. There are also a lot of reasons why purchasing an actual security system might not be cost effective. So, if you're looking for a simple way to get a single camera security system up and running, and you happen to have a spare Android device lying around, there's an app that you need to look into called IP Webcam. The IP Webcam app uses your device's built-in camera, adds a lightweight web server, and allows you to connect to the camera through that server. It's simple and effective.

Scala in Large Scale Systems
We've used the actor model when a problem can be decomposed into a set of sub-systems each with its own state and where scalability is a consideration. Designing to be distributed by default means you can take advantage of location transparency to scale both vertically and horizontally. However, the loss of formal interfaces is unsettling since we lose those compiler checks. A compromise is formal protocols, keeping actors simple and making these explicit in our design and tests. Writing clear and concise tests can be tricky, and debugging is challenging in any concurrent system.

Cybersecurity spending: How to know when enough is enough
The requirements for each strategy will vary between sector and organisation. Working Links CIO Omid Shiraji says that, while security represents the number one reason for existing for some companies, he would rather channel his firm's IT budget towards the areas that are going to add real value. "The cyber-threat and security in general can be blown out of proportion -- if someone wants to compromise your organisation, they will," he says. "Breaches will occur. For me, great security is all about recovery. What you must make sure as a CIO is that you have the best possible recovery procedures, business continuity processes, and crisis management approaches."

Quote for the day:

"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." -- Naguib Mahfouz

February 02, 2015

Microsoft talks up Windows 10 for business, but questions mount
The revamp, which experts have called Microsoft's biggest-ever change to its update and upgrade process, is integral to the firm's "Windows as a service" strategy. While most consumers will receive these updates -- which may come as often as monthly -- automatically via Windows Update, the mechanism already used to deliver security patches, businesses will be leery of such a quick cadence. Historically, enterprises have been conservative in how they adopt new OSes for their workers' personal computers, worried about meeting regulatory requirements and new costs to train employees when software morphs.

Raspberry Pi 2 is six times faster than Pi 1, supports Windows 10
The Raspberry Pi 2 has a faster CPU and more memory than its predecessor. This could make it a true PC replacement, said Eben Upton, founder of Raspberry Pi Foundation. “This is obviously fantastic news for Raspberry Pi—in terms of performance it takes us over the line into being a ‘real’ PC you could use for web browsing and productivity applications,” Upton said. The faster performance will also bring new applications like computer vision to robots, smart devices, drones and other electronics. For example, the extra horsepower will allow the Pi 2 to comprehend images from attached 3D cameras, which was not possible on Pi 1.

Big Data Success Remains Elusive: Study
In some cases, organizations attempt to use their existing data management systems to process big data streams, often with poor results. "Legacy systems that generally have been used to great efficiency for enterprise data management and content management, sometimes aren’t suited to these new data sources," Hunter said. These sources may include social media streams, log data, and sensor data from the emerging Internet of Things to evaluate customers, transactions, and user sentiment. But this approach usually doesn’t go well, resulting in what he calls a "fumbling of the legacy systems."

How Google could end up as your next wireless carrier
If Google does end up buying wholesale, they could potentially repackage the service however they want, or bundle it with other services. Sprint and T-Mobile would probably place, at least, some restrictions on price or plan structure, but there are a lot of things that Google could do that Sprint or T-Mobile aren't already doing, Menezes said. One option, he pointed out, was the possibility of pay-as-you-go with a competitive rate for the enterprise -- something Menezes said is routinely brought up in conversations he has about wireless service. Currently, most options are prepaid, with no way to account for unused service.

Docker chief operator: Why the open source container project is taking a new shape
"At Mongo we experienced similar rapid growth. Docker is actually faster than Mongo. One of the reasons they were interested in bringing me on is the fact that if you're going to draw parallels with anything in history that has experienced that sort of growth it's MongoDB, which before Docker I'd say is the faster-growing open- source project that I know of. "Now Docker is doing it close to twice as fast as far as growth goes. It feels almost like overnight. There are a lot of challenges that come with that. At Mongo I felt we were writing the book on it as we went. Mongo walked that path before and we'll definitely be drawing on some of the experiences there."

How Digital Ecosystems Are Creating the 'We Economy'
"In last year's Technology Vision report, we noted how large enterprises were reasserting leadership in their markets by adopting digital to drive their processes more effectively and transform how they go to market, collaborate with partners, engage with customers and manage transactions," says Paul Daugherty, CTO of Accenture. "Now that digital has become part of the fabric of their operating DNA, they are stretching their boundaries to leverage a broader ecosystem of digital businesses as they shape the next generation of their products, services and business models to effect change on a much broader scale," Daugherty says.

Office Online vs. Office 365: What’s free, what’s not, and what you really need
If you need Access or Publisher, though, Office Online won’t work for you. In order to get either of these apps as part of a suite, you have to buy Office Professional 2013, or subscribe to Office 365—which comes with the rights to install Office Professional 2013 on multiple machines. And if you want to be able to do things like change the orientation of a document, insert section breaks, or other advanced functions from a tablet or smartphone, you’ll have to sign up for Office 365.

Mobile app security grabs feds' attention
NIST points out concerns. “Despite the benefits of mobile apps, however, the use of apps can potentially lead to serious security issues. This is so because, like traditional enterprise applications, apps may contain software vulnerabilities that are susceptible to attack,” the report says. “Such vulnerabilities may be exploited by an attacker to gain unauthorized access to an organization’s information technology resources or the user’s personal data.” NIST advises development of security requirements on issues such as securing of data and acceptable levels of risk. Specific recommendations are offered for the planning, app testing, and app approval/rejection processes.

Accenture unveils its vision for five big tech trends in 2015
“Visionary companies are recognizing that as every business becomes a digital business, together they can effect change on a much bigger stage,” Accenture said. Home Depot, for instance, is using the Internet of Things to shape the way people live in connected homes. Every product that it sells will have to be compatible with Home Depot’s own Wink connected home system, making all products in its ecosystem easier to install. Fiat plans to use its Uconnect platform — integrated with TomTom, Reuters, Facebook, and TuneIn — to provide drivers with communication, entertainment, and navigation that lets drivers stay focused on driving.

How to Lead in Ambiguous Times
The more volatile and hostile the environment becomes, the more we see success and survival begin to converge: In a cataclysmic environment, the two would be one and the same. We aren’t facing threats of that extremity, and corporate leaders cannot give up the need to grow. But they have to take ambiguity into account. In essence, the right approach is focused on sustainability. When we hear talk of sustainability, it is typically of the need for corporations to reassess a go-go growth model—one aimed at maximizing profitability—that is viewed as insufficiently inclusive. Company leaders are asked, by their employees, customers, or society at large, to “give back” by supporting charitable causes and the environment.

Quote for the day:

"Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong." -- Peter T. Mcintyre