Data Management

FBI Wins Skirmish in War on Dotcom
March 05, 2013

Kim Dotcom experienced a legal setback late last week when the New Zealand Court of Appeal overturned a lower court ruling that had required the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to disclose all of its evidence against him. However, his fight to avoid extradition is nowhere near closure.

With Business Foundations Shaking, Good Enterprise Architects Are Hard to Find
March 04, 2013

Enterprise architects are looking at several trends impacting their roles in the business world -- the growth of cloud computing, the arrival of big data, more security challenges, the overall rate of technological advances. These are the topics discussed at conferences.

Hackathon's Goal: A Smartphone Game That Scores Points for Cancer Research
March 02, 2013

A UK-based charity is sponsoring a weekend hackathon, but those invited won't be using their coding talents to advance any business causes. The 40 programmers, gamers, graphic designers and other specialists will spend the time designing a smartphone game that can let average users help with cancer research.

Seamlessly Sync Photos Between Android and PC
February 28, 2013

The Last Mile has been the challenge of industries immemorial. What, you say? Well, humor me, and I'll tell you. "Last Mile" -- usually -- refers to the last part of a network, the bit that delivers communications directly into a home. It's often the hardest and most expensive part.

IBM's New PureSystems Promise to Ease Big Data, Cloud Adoption
February 19, 2013

Business IT solution development generally follows specific trends and overlapping eras. The first, calculation, occurred as digital products and services wholly replaced adding machines and other mechanical business devices. The second, computation, mirrored the evolution of digitized solutions for increasingly complex processes and applications.

eScholar's Mike Gargano: Nothing Can Stop Open Source
February 12, 2013

eScholar's only business is helping state and local education agencies get the best bang for their buck from collecting and using educational data to drive better school performance results. That sometimes involves helping its customers work with data gleaned from a variety of commercial and open source enterprise databases.

Cross-Domain Semantics and the End of 'Solution Sales'
February 08, 2013

Do your customers think of you as one of them? Do they think you truly understand their business challenges, their opportunities and what keeps them up at night? These are questions you should very seriously consider, because in the extraordinarily demanding B2B sales climate of our post-recession world, it's the vendor who can answer "yes" who will win the business.

Auto Biz Game-Changers: Big Data Mashups
February 04, 2013

Ford has exploited the strengths of big data analytics by directing them internally to improve business results. In doing so, they scour the metrics from the company's best processes across myriad manufacturing efforts and through detailed outputs from in-use automobiles -- all to improve and help transform its business, says Ford researcher Michael Cavaretta.

After the Storm: Social, Virtualization Allow Business as Usual
January 28, 2013

Today's workforce never truly switches off due to the proliferation of mobile devices and the blurring line between our personal and professional lives. On whether this "always on" mentality will ultimately cause more harm than good, the jury remains out. One positive aspect of the constant availability of technology is the impact on business continuity and disaster recovery.

DNA Could Become the Next Big Data Warehouse
January 25, 2013

Researchers at the European Bioinformatics Institute on Wednesday announced their success at storing data by encoding it to DNA. The system could stand the test of time -- tens of thousands of years, perhaps. This method for archiving data could make it possible to store 100 million hours of high-definition video in about a cup of DNA, and given the trend toward Big Data, that could be a major breakthrough.

Saudi Blogger Won't Face Death on Apostasy Accusation
January 23, 2013

A court in Saudi Arabia reportedly has declined to hear the case of Raif Badawi, a liberal blogger who was accused of apostasy. Apostasy,defined as the abandonment of one's faith, is a particularly grievous charge in Islam. Had it been so inclined, the court that turned down the case could have sentenced Badawi to death. As it stands, Badawi's charge was referred to a lower court.

Machine Learning, TDA and the Future of Invention
January 23, 2013

Ayasdi came out of stealth mode and told the world it had a new way to analyze big data, and I think the implications for CRM and social are very large indeed. The new way is called "topological data analysis" and hearing about it has the feel of hearing about relativity for the first time and learning that space is curved.

Dotcom Fights the Law With New Mega Site
January 21, 2013

Kim Dotcom on Sunday opened the doors to the new file-sharing website Mega. The site is making a splash in the file-sharing world with its promise of exceptional privacy and security. That is not the only reason Mega's debut is notable, though: Dotcom is the founder of Megaupload, which was shut down by U.S. authorities following indictments for piracy against Dotcom and others.

Google Denies Killing Donkey on Street View Expedition
January 17, 2013

Google seems to have had a dustup with a donkey -- literally. Images plucked from Google Street View have raised questions about whether a Google Street View car ran over a donkey in the African nation of Botswana. Images culled from Street View show a donkey lying in the road. One of the images also shows dust hovering over the donkey, possibly suggestive of a recent tumble.

Letting the Customer Experience Drive Innovation
January 14, 2013

By acting as a performance center of excellence, American International Group's Global Performance Architecture Group has improved performance of the company's services to deliver better experiences and payoffs for businesses and end users alike. The group looks at the user experience and tailors the company's technology to maximize customer satisfaction and utility.

Bringing Order to Data Backup Chaos
January 07, 2013

Enterprise backup is broken, but there are methods being developed to fix it. Nowadays, methods for backing up and protecting enterprise data are fragmented, complex and inefficient. However, some new approaches are helping to simplify the process, keep costs in check, and improve recovery speed and confidence.

Feds' Data Center Reduction Requires Spending Now to Save Later
December 28, 2012

How much do federal agencies need to spend on data center consolidation investments now, in order to save money later? It could be quite a lot. The U.S. Department of Labor, for example, figures that $60 million or so will do the trick in meeting its data center consolidation goals.

Federal Agencies to Slash Number of Data Centers
December 19, 2012

The U.S. government's program to consolidate federal data centers presents an opportunity for improving IT management that goes well beyond the objective of just trying to tidy up data center operations and save a little money. As a result of the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, the number of government data centers will shrink sharply from its current level of about 3,000 centers to about 1,800.

Stallman and Ubuntu: Sticks and Stones and a Blogosphere Brawl
December 17, 2012

It was only a few weeks ago that the Linux blogosphere's Punchy Penguin Saloon suffered its latest round of damage thanks to the recent skirmish over the GPL, but now the popular establishment of questionable repute is actually shut down for a week for repairs. The cause this time? Yet another blogosphere brawl, needless to say, focusing this time on Ubuntu and its newly installed "surveillance code."

Whip Your Files Into Shape in Windows 8
December 13, 2012

There are three big changes in Windows 8, the latest version of Microsoft's operating system. All three affect how you organize your computer. First, Microsoft replaces its Start menu search box with a new, always accessible Search charm. Second, the Windows Explorer file browser gains ribbon functions like previewing and archiving.