Facebook’s Libra crypto backers step back amid regulatory pressure
Concerns over possible nefarious use of the cryptocurrency may be causing Visa, MasterCard and others to tap the brakes on the project. Facebook Multi-national regulatory pushback against Facebook’s effort to create a cryptocurrency payment network is slowing the project and causing supporters such as Visa and Mastercard to back away, according to sources familiar with the situation and a published report. Along with the initial announcement of its Libra digital currency and Calibra online digital wallet to store it, Facebook earlier…
Time to install Microsoft’s mainstream September patches – and avoid the dregs
This month’s lightning rod patch — the fix for the peek-a-boo Internet Explorer zero-day CVE-2019-1367 — still isn’t in any of the pushed updates. Unless you’re a Chicken Little acolyte, avoid it, but get the rest of the September patches installed now. Here’s how. Thinkstock It’s a smelter-weight slapdown. In one corner you have the Chicken Little contingent, which insists that September’s IE zero-day patch must be important because Microsoft marked it as “Exploited: Yes” and memorialized it with an extremely odd…
Can an Apple Watch prevent fatal car accidents? It just might.
A new study questions the efficacy of car accident-avoidance systems, but it’s possible that a simple smartwatch might be part of the solution. Volvo Today’s connected cars try to deliver a lot of safety features, such as using radar and video cameras to detect an imminent accident and sometimes take over braking and steering control in an effort to avert that accident. At the very least, the cars will issue increasingly loud and bright visual and audio alerts to get…
6 strategies for avoiding cloud vendor lock-in
A credible threat of defection can help you leverage competitive pricing opportunities and escape long-term relationships gone bad. natasaadzic / Getty Images In an ideal business world, enterprises would forge strategic partnerships with their cloud services providers that lead to prosperity for all involved. It doesn’t always work out that way, however. Things change over time, and in many cases the relationship between the customer and its cloud provider does not evolve to account for that change. Or maybe costs…
Strategic partnership: A magic bullet for enterprise innovation
Strategic partnerships have emerged as an opportunity to help enterprise businesses scale. Make sure your organization doesn’t get stuck on the sidelines! Charles Deluvio (CC0) Consumer demand is becoming increasingly more complex, and businesses must scale while remaining nimble. But companies can’t “be everything” to their customers. In an effort to cover customer needs, enterprises employ creative innovation strategies, new product development, imaginative digital marketing and even costly qualitative acquisitions. As the need to provide a greater array of services becomes…
Dropbox launches Spaces, its ‘smart’ collaboration workspace
Dropbox hopes to become a central tool for employee productivity and collaboration with Dropbox Spaces, which launched alongside several other updates. Thinkstock Dropbox this week launched a collaboration hub designed to let users work together around a variety of documents, another step in the company’s evolution beyond cloud file-sharing into something more focused on productivity. The San Francisco-based company initially revealed plans for its revamped application – now called Dropbox Spaces – in June, along with a new desktop app. Spaces acts…
20 great uses for an old Android device
We all love getting new gadgets, but what to do with the old ones? Here are 20 clever ways to put your old Android phone or tablet to good use. freestocks.org (CC0) Got extra smartphones sitting around your office? How about tablets? As we move multiple generations into mobile technology, more and more of us are building up collections of old, dated devices from both our work and our personal lives. And more often than not, those devices do little more…
Meet Intercom – the company behind those pop-up chats at the bottom of websites
The SaaS company has quickly carved out a leadership position in the business messaging space, with a valuation of $1.3 billion and a quickly growing number of customers, here’s what you need to know Intercom The business messaging service Intercom is expanding quickly thanks to the sort of venture capital funding that puts it into the enterprise software big leagues alongside the likes of Slack and Zoom. Founded in San Francisco in 2011 by four Irishmen, Intercom provides business messaging…
