Monthly Archives: October 2016

Facebook at Work (finally) launches as ‘Workplace’

Facebook already owns consumer social networking, and with its new Workplace service, it’s clear it wants the enterprise, too. The new offering will feel familiar to Facebook users but will also remain separate from company’s consumer platform.

Facebook at Work, the company’s social network for business, has a new name, but it features many of the same tools that 1.71 billion people use every month — without all the ads. Now called simply “Workplace,” the service is now publicly available to any organization. Facebook is a dominant force among consumers and marketers, and now it is setting its sights on the enterprise market.

Workplace is free for the first three months, and then Facebook will charge a range of monthly prices, per active user: $3 each for up to 1,000 users, $2 for up to 10,000 users and $1 each for enterprises with more than 10,000 users. Nonprofit organizations and academic institutions will get Workplace at no cost, according to Facebook. In comparison, the popular collaboration service Slack, now a Workplace rival, offers a free app with limited features, and it currently charges $15 per month per active user for its premium offering.

workplace by facebook desktop

Desktop version of Workplace by Facebook.

Workplace is untethered from Facebook proper

During a 20-month pilot phase, more than 1,000 companies tested Workplace, and Facebook says it made many changes based on feedback prior to today’s launch. Perhaps the most notable tweak is a stronger separation between Workplace and Facebook’s consumer service. “Most employees and employers wanted to have separation,” says Sean Ryan, vice president of partnerships at Facebook. “[Businesses] want to make sure this was a workplace-oriented product, a productivity product, not a social product, so we separated it out into two different apps.”

Workers will have to use Workplace and Facebook’s consumer service in different browser tabs — they cannot toggle between personal and work accounts in the same tab. Workplace users will get access to a new Workplace mobile app and another “Work Chat” messaging app for organizations that’s similar to Facebook’s well-known Messenger app. Both apps will be available for iOS and Android devices. In browsers and via the mobile apps, “[I]t is a separate sign-on, and it’s a separate instance,” Ryan says. Those distinctions will also help Facebook position Workplace as a productivity tool, he says.

Craig LeClair, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, says Facebook made a wise decision by pushing an enterprise cloud platform that will compete with established enterprise vendors, such as Salesforce. The firm forecasts enterprise IT spending will reach $2.9 trillion in 2016, and it expects millennials to comprise half of all workers by 2020. “Facebook believes that coming out of the consumer world, where these millennials honed their habits, is a market they can succeed in and capitalize on financially, and I agree,” LeClair says.

workplace by facebook ios iphone apps

Workplace by Facebook for iOS.

Enterprises that use Workplace retain exclusive ownership of their data, according to Facebook. “We’re very clear in the contract that the company owns the data, and we do not, and they have access to it whenever they want,” Ryan says. “If they choose to turn off the service, all of that goes away.” Facebook also gained SOC 2 compliance certification for Workplace, to help alleviate some privacy and security concerns CIOs may have, and the company will continue to pursue more IT certifications as needed, according to Ryan.

Workplace has all of the same basic features of Facebook, including News Feed, live video, reactions, groups, search and trending posts, in addition to exclusive corporate features, such as a dashboard with analytics and access to identity providers that enable companies to integrate Workplace with existing IT systems, according to Facebook. Today it also introduced multi-company groups to give businesses the ability to collaborate with fellow Workplace users employed by different organizations.

As for technical support, Facebook says it will provide assistance 12 hours a day, five days a week, and it will guarantee a response within 48 hours, or two business days.

Partner program will fill Workplace gaps

Facebook plans to bring more capabilities to Workplace through a partnership program that includes more than a dozen companies at launch, including Deloitte, TBWA and Okta. It currently has no plans to introduce document editing tools or storage, but Facebook will look to existing providers to fill those gaps, according to Ryan. “We’re a platform company … we’re not going to be the best at offering these specialized tools, whether it’s storage, document management or ediscovery,” he says. “That’s where our legacy as a platform company comes into play, is starting to make those APIs and the platform available so specialized type of needs … is done by people who already do that and do that very well.”

Facebook, which first launched nearly 12 years ago, didn’t rush into the enterprise market by any means, but Workplace by Facebook could ultimately represent the purest manifestation of the modern consumerization of IT movement.

 

via:  networkworld,

What ‘mobile’ should mean for healthcare

Ask a set of healthcare professionals about the future and they’ll answer: “Mobile.”

Mobile technology is nearing ubiquity in America; a Pew Research report shows 64 percent of all adult Americans own a smartphone, and ownership rates among millennials reach above 80 percent. It’s clear that to stay relevant and access the next generation of patients, the healthcare industry must innovate its mobile efforts.

But after a number of recent discussions with healthcare executives, I’ve noticed the industry is lacking a clear definition of what “mobile” really means. Continue the conversation with the same set of professionals being asked about the future and you might notice some use “apps” and “mobile” interchangeably. Others use it as a term to refer to anything digital. A few might not be able to define it at all.

So what, specifically, is a mobile healthcare (mHealth) solution? Mobile healthcare (noun):

Short definition — Any healthcare service provided via a mobile technology platform.

Full definition — In Connected Sustainable Cities, authors Federico Casalegno and William J. Mitchell introduce readers to Lucia, a fictional 65-year-old diabetic living in the then-future San Francisco, and her futuristic device called a “Passport.” The Passport, described as “the size of a wallet, with a touch screen, GPS, Wi-Fi, and a ubiquitous video connection” was intended to integrate and coordinate a variety of services across the city… but, for Lucia, it is primarily an mHealth device.

While walking to the bus stop, Lucia’s Passport recommends longer routes in order to comply with her doctor’s instructions to walk more. It allows her to check in for a clinic appointment and answer questions posed by her doctor while in route. After an appointment, the Passport reminds Lucia when it’s time to take her medication. The futuristic device is what most mHealth solutions strive to be — a context-aware system that streamlines several aspects of healthcare and helps improve patient compliance.

The Passport may only be a concept, but the mobile devices we have today can be just as effective and efficient when it comes to mHealth. Current mobile platforms include smartphones, smartwatches and mobile tablets. Some potential technologies offer additional forms, like the hands-free Google Glass, but, as yet, have not reached the critical mass required to be deemed mainstream. Any healthcare service that sits on top of those mobiles devices is an mHealth solution.

The designs for those healthcare services are diverse. Some mHealth solutions target future fitness or diet goals with gamified apps, while others deal with administrative aspects of the industry, such as scheduling appointments or refilling prescriptions through text. More yet specialize in helping change patient behavior or treat chronic diseases by providing tools to track symptoms and communicate with medical professionals. While varied, they all fall under mHealth.

mHealth is more than just an app

Today, many mHealth solutions are produced as apps. Nearly every health insurer in the U.S. has at least one app, including UnitedHealth, Anthem, Aetna and Kaiser Permanente, as well as most large U.S. hospitals (66 percent produce their own apps for patients, according to research from Accenture. There also are a range of popular consumer mHealth apps available, like RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal.

I have found the large number of mHealth apps offered can cause some confusion when trying to define mobile healthcare solutions, as companies producing their own mobile solutions can come to believe mHealth is equivalent to healthcare apps.

Specifically, many companies find themselves pressured into an mHealth strategy because the competition is doing it, and the easier way to move forward is by developing an app. Yet, often they either copy what others have done or completely replicate what they are currently doing online or in person.

One must take a step back and ask the question: Why am I doing this in the first place?

Apps are part of the mHealth portfolio — but limiting the definition of mHealth to apps limits its flexibility. There are many other mHealth options beyond apps.

Mobile is first and foremost a communication platform

Mobile, by its pure essence, is a communication tool. It provides individuals with a way to communicate and share information at any time, at any location, via multiple modalities (e.g. voice, text, messaging).

Imagine being able to opt-in to a text-based reminder system set up by your doctor’s office to send you a custom text a few minutes before you need to take your medication, or an interactive system that allows you to send information about how many steps you’ve taken, your blood sugar levels or your diet for the day, and receive feedback from medical staff offering encouragement or correction. Systems like these are being implemented using technology readily available to patients, and are proving to have a wide reach for providers.

Hahnemann Hospital, for example, created a pilot program to reduce its 30-day readmissions among chronic heart failure patients in 2015. The program utilized a text and email system to get patients into follow-up appointments by sending reminders ahead of the visit. After 10 months, the hospital had reduced its 30-day readmissions by 16 percent among patients who received the messages. The study showed that a simple text-based reminder system can be considerably effective in reducing readmission — which improves patients’ lives and reduces costs for the hospital.

Mobile has its limitations

Of course, whether in the form of an app or an alternative system, mobile does have limitations.  Its limited display “real estate” and not always consistent and reliable connectivity speeds (depending on one’s wireless service provider) provide key constraints on its usability.

The medium is not typically well-suited for processes where users need to consume detailed or lengthy information, or require an extensive amount of data entry. Likewise, some conversations and topics are best addressed through other forms of communication, like verbally or face-to-face. At the core, mHealth is not intended to be, nor should it be, a complete replacement for the traditional patient care system.

Mobile should be a part of the overall customer experience

What mHealth is designed for is becoming an integral part of the modern patient care system. The medium is at its peak when developers and producers stick to the basics. Mobile has always been a means of communication, in real time and accessible around the world. Leveraging these strengths can take the friction out of administrative systems, provide better access for and to patients and, overall, help facilitate human connections. There are few options as powerful.

Simply put, a mobile healthcare solution is a new and exciting source of innovation for the healthcare industry. It is a flexible healthcare solution not tied to any specific form and based on an evolving platform of mobile technology. And it has the potential to improve the patient experience while lowering costs for healthcare providers — as long as the industry can agree on an apt definition.

 

via:  techcrunch

You can use encrypted chat app Signal on desktop now

Signal, the encrypted chat app powered by Open Whisper Systems, is finally available as a desktop app.

The free app, which has earned praise from Edward Snowden and security experts like Matt Green and Bruce Schneier for its tough encryption, has long been available for iPhone and Android users.  (Signal’s cryptography is also used in many popular messaging apps, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.) But Signal wasn’t available on desktop, which presented a pain point for users who want to seamlessly check their texts across mobile and desktop devices.

Signal rolled out desktop support for Android users in April and today added support for iOS users. Signal will now allow all users to link their mobile accounts to a desktop app, so they can receive their messages on two devices. All iOS users have to do is update Signal on their phones, download the desktop version at signal.org/desktop and scan a QR code to link the new device.

“It works pretty seamlessly, you just authorize a desktop app from your phone. Then you can send and receive messages from your phone or the desktop,” Signal’s lead developer Moxie Marlinspike stated.

Adding desktop support for encrypted chat apps can be tricky because your decryption key needs to be stored safely across your devices. But that presents a challenge — how do you shuffle this key around to all your devices without decreasing your security?

Apple solved the challenge for iMessage by using unique keys for every device and sending your messages to each device in duplicate. Marlinspike says the solution for Signal is complicated, but that users will keep the same identity key on all their devices. “There’s an identity key in Signal. When you link or approve a desktop install, that gets moved to the desktop. All your clients have access to that, which allows for your identity or fingerprint to be the same,” he explained.

 

via:  techcrunch

Duolingo’s chatbots help you learn a new language

Today’s chatbots, for the most part, aren’t all that useful, but what if you could use them to learn a new language? When it comes to learning languages, using what you’ve learned in the context of a conversation is extremely useful. If you are learning online, though, you often don’t have anybody to talk to. That’s why Duolingo today introduced chatbots to its app that allow you to have AI-powered conversations.

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These Duolingo Bots currently work for users who want to learn French, Spanish and German. The company promises it’ll add other languages soon. Sadly, this feature also currently only works in the Duolingo iPhone app. Given that the bots’ intelligence resides in the cloud, you’ll have to be connected to the Internet to use this feature.

To make talking to the bots a bit more compelling, the company tried to give its different bots a bit of personality. There’s Chef Robert, Renée the Driver and Officer Ada, for example. They will react differently to your answers (and correct you as necessary), but for the most part, the idea here is to mimic a real conversation.

These bots also allow for a degree of flexibility in your answers that most language-learning software simply isn’t designed for. There are plenty of ways to greet somebody, for example, but most services will often only accept a single answer. When you’re totally stumped for words, though, Duolingo offers a “help my reply” button with a few suggested answers.

“One of the main reasons people learn languages is to have conversations,” writes Duolingo CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn in today’s announcement. “Students master vocabulary and comprehension skills with  Duolingo, but coming up with things to say in real­-life situations remains daunting. Bots offer a  sophisticated and effective answer to that need.”

For now, you can only use text chat to talk to the bots. Over time, Duolingo plans to allow for spoken conversations as well, though.

 

via:  techcrunch

Senators ask FCC to investigate Stingray surveillance tech

A group of Democratic senators asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate cell site simulators like Stingrays to determine if the surveillance devices used by local law enforcement agencies are disrupting cellphone service for ordinary consumers and 911 calls. The senators are also asking the FCC to look into whether Stingray use disproportionately affects people of color.

Cell site simulators, commonly known as IMSI catchers or by the brand name Stingray, pose as normal cellphone towers. When nearby phones connect, the simulators can capture their unique ID numbers, track their locations and intercept the contents of calls and messages. Law enforcement agencies tend to be secretive about their use of Stingrays, but several civil rights groups, including Center for Media Justice, ColorOfChange.org and New America’s Open Technology Institute, claimed in August that the Baltimore Police Department’s use of the devices was inhibiting emergency calls and unfairly targeting communities of color.

The organizations complained to the FCC, asking it to intervene. According to thecomplaint (PDF), BPD used Stingrays 4,700 times over the course of nine years to investigate everything from kidnappings to petty thefts. Because the devices affect any phone within a 200-500 meter radius, it could absorb not only a suspect’s calls but also calls to emergency services, suicide hotlines and other important resources. The complaint also cites USA Today reporting that shows BPD most commonly used Stingrays in black communities.

stingrays in baltimore

“We are particularly concerned about allegations that cell site simulators — commonly referred to as ‘Stingrays’ — disrupt cellular service and may interfere with calls for emergency assistance, and that the manner in which cell site simulators are used may disproportionately impact communities of color. While we appreciate law enforcement’s need to locate and track dangerous suspects, the use of Stingray devices should not come at the expense of innocent Americans’ privacy and safety, nor should law enforcement’s use of the devices disrupt ordinary consumers’ ability to communicate,” Senators Al Franken, Patrick Leahy, Ron Wyden, Sherrod Brown, Edward Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Tammy Baldwin, Bernie Sanders, Tom Udall, Martin Heinrich and Chris Coons wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.

The senators are asking the FCC to explain the cellphone interference caused by Stingrays and how the devices should be licensed and regulated.

 

via:  techcrunch

OpenStack’s latest release focuses on scalability and resilience

OpenStack, the massive open source project that helps enterprises run the equivalent of AWS in their own data centers, is launching the 14th major version of its software today. Newton, as this new version is called, shows how OpenStack has matured over the last few years. The focus this time is on making some of the core OpenStack services more scalable and resilient. In addition, though, the update also includes a couple of major new features. The project now better supports containers and bare metal servers, for example.

In total, more than 2,500 developers and users contributed to Newton. That gives you a pretty good sense of the scale of this project, which includes support for core data center services like compute, storage and networking, but also a wide range of smaller projects.

 

 

As OpenStack Foundation COO Mark Collier told me, the focus with Newton wasn’t so much on new features but on adding tools for supporting new kinds of workloads.

Both Collier and OpenStack Foundation executive director Jonathan Bryce stressed that OpenStack is mostly about providing the infrastructure that people need to run their workloads. The project itself is somewhat agnostic as to what workloads they want to run and which tools they want to use, though. “People aren’t looking at the cloud as synonymous with [virtual machines] anymore,” Collier said. Instead, they are mixing in bare metal and containers as well. OpenStack wants to give these users a single control plane to manage all of this.

Enterprises do tend to move slowly, though, and even the early adopters that use OpenStack are only now starting to adopt containers. “We see people who are early adopters who are running container in production,” Bryce told me. “But I think OpenStack or not OpenStack, it’s still early for containers in production usage.” He did note, however, that he is regularly talks to enterprise users who are looking at how they can use the different components in OpenStack to get to containers faster.


networktopology

Core features of OpenStack, including the Nova compute service, as well as the Horizon dashboard and Swift object/blob store, have now become more scalable. The Magnum project for managing containers on OpenStack, which already supported Docker Swarm, Kubernetes and Mesos, now also allows operators to run Kubernetes clusters on bare metal servers, while the Ironic framework for provisioning those bare metal servers is now more tightly integrated with Magnuma and also now supports multi-tenant networking.

The release also includes plenty of other updates and tweaks, of course. You can find a full (and fully overwhelming) rundown of what’s new in all of the different projects here.

With this release out of the door, the OpenStack community is now looking ahead to the next release six months form now. This next release will go through its planning stages at the upcoming OpenStack Summit in Barcelona later this month and will then become generally available next February.

 

via:  techcrunch

Salesforce will buy Krux to expand behavioral tracking capabilities

Salesforce plans to add the data collection capabilities of Krux to its CRM platform.

Salesforce.com has agreed to buy user data management platform Krux Digital, potentially allowing businesses to process even more data in their CRM systems.

Krux describes its business as “capturing, unifying, and activating data signatures across every device and every channel, in real time.”

Essentially, it performs the tracking underlying behavioral advertising, handling 200 billion “data collection events” on three billion browsers and devices (desktop, mobile, tablet and set-top) each month.

With that staggering volume of data, “Krux will extend the Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s audience segmentation and targeting capabilities to power consumer marketing with even more precision, at scale,” Krux CEO and co-founder Tom Chavez wrote on the company blog.

The acquisition will also allow joint customers of Salesforce and Crux to feed “billions of new signals” to Salesforce Einstein, a suite of AI-based tools for building predictive models, Chavez said.

Unveiled two weeks ago, Salesforce Einstein will include functions such as predictive lead scoring and recommended case classification. Some functions will be available for free, while others will be charged for based on data volume and user numbers.

Krux is part of the Salesforce ecosystem, but also works with other vendors including Oracle, Google’s DoubleClick, Criteo and a host of other advertising networks. According to Chavez, it won’t be cutting those ties following the acquisition. “Openness remains a guiding principal,” he said. “We expect to continue supporting our thriving partner ecosystem and integrating with a wide variety of platforms.”

Businesses already using Krux to track their customers include media companies BBC, HBO, NBCUniversal and DailyMotion; publishers The Guardian and Financial Times, and food and drink companies ABInBev, Mondelez International, Kelloggs and Keurig.

Salesforce will pay around US$340 million in cash and a similar amount in shares for Krux, according to a filing it made with the SEC Tuesday. It expects to close the deal by the end of January.

Later Tuesday, Salesforce will open its Dreamforce customer and partner conference in San Francisco. Krux is one of the exhibitors.

 

via:  itworld

Android malware that can infiltrate corporate networks is spreading

DressCode has been found circulating in at least 3,000 Trojanized apps.

dresscode

One of the Trojanized apps that’s part of the DressCode family. Credit: Trend Micro

 

An Android malware is spreading across app stores, including Google Play, and has the capability of stealing sensitive files from corporate networks.

DressCode, a family of Android malware, has been found circulating in at least 3,000 Trojanized apps, security firm Trend Micro said.

DressCode hides itself inside games, user interface themes and phone optimization boosters. It can also be difficult to detect because the malicious coding only makes up a small portion of the overall app.

On Google Play, Trend Micro found more than 400 apps that are part of the DressCode family, it said. That’s 10 times more than what security researchers at Check Point noticed a month ago.

Trend Micro added that one of these apps on Google Play had been installed 100,000 to 500,000 times. Once installed, DressCode’s malicious coding will contact its command and control servers and receive orders from its developers.

The malware is particularly dangerous because it can infiltrate whatever internet network the infected device connects to. Imagine a user bringing a phone to the office and connecting to the corporate network. The makers of DressCode could use the phone as a springboard to hack into the corporate network or download sensitive files, Trend Micro said.

“With the growth of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs, more enterprises are exposing themselves to risk via carefree employee mobile usage,” the security firm said.

According to Trend Micro, 82 percent of businesses have BYOD programs, allowing their employees to use personal devices for work functions. 

The DressCode malware can also be used to turn infected devices into a botnet. This allows the infected devices to carry out distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks or be used to send spam.

Trend Micro has found DressCode infecting enterprise users in the U.S., France, Israel, Ukraine, and other countries. The security firm is advising that users always check the online reviews for whatever apps they download. 

Users can also install Trend Micro’s mobile security products to protect themselves.

Google hasn’t  immediately respond to a request for comment on the malware.

 

via:  computerworld

Avast CEO on why it’s just spent $1.4BN to absorb security rival AVG

Security firm Avast has today confirmed the completion of a $1.4 billion acquisition of fellow Czech-based antivirus company AVG. The deal will see Avast’s customer base nearly double — swelling from 230 million to more than 400 million in total, 160M of whom are mobile users.

The acquisition was announced back in July, with scale and geographical breadth touted as the driving forces, along with a plan to expand product offerings including in the Internet of Things space.

Avast says the new combined entity reaches one-third of the world’s PC users outside of China. Both the Avast and AVG brands are likely to continue to operate, depending on relative market strengths.

There will be job cuts, based on eliminating duplicate roles, but Avast is not confirming how many or where they will come at this stage.

The purchase price values AVG at $25 per share, for a total price-tag of $1.3BN, but Avast CEO Vince Steckler said there was also around $100M of AVG debt to pay off — bumping the total paid to $1.4BN.

The acquisition has been completed within the originally slated timeframe.

Speaking to TechCrunch ahead of the deal closing, Steckler said the two companies have been circling each other for decades, given their shared industry and business location. And finally the summer Avast convinced AVG they were better off as one.

“This was, I think, the fourth attempt we have made in the last two or two and a half years to buy AVG,” he said. “We approached them, we got kind of tired of being constantly turned down — so we approached them kind of one last time and told them hey we’ll pay this amount, no higher, no negotiations, tell us yes or no. And they said yes.

“That came together very, very quick — within a matter of days, really.”

But while competitive spirit kept them apart for years — a combination of “pride and arrogance” on both sides, reckons Steckler — larger forces reshaping the computing landscape and the security market are evidently driving them together now. “There’s a better long term future for a combined entity, than two smaller, standalone entities.”

One very big motivator Steckler mentions for the acquisition is machine learning technology now being used to power many security solutions. And AI’s need for data, lots and lots of data.

“Security these days — for the top companies — is very much a big data thing. We’re not into the classic signatures and checksums. These are big data machine learning products, and they rely on having a massive number of end-points to collect data from, to process, to determine what’s good and what isn’t,” he said.

“Getting hold of AVG’s 160M end points, to add to our 240M, it adds a lot more end points into our data analysis — which improves the security results and allows us to stay ahead of others.”

“All the top flight ‘antivirus products’ are all extraordinarily sophisticated, and many of them — such as ours — exist mostly in the cloud. And they run mostly on machine learning and AI,” he added.

The other trend squeezing veteran security players and driving consolidation is of course the decline of traditional AV revenues, especially on the consumer side where free/freemium antivirus products now dominate. The old paid antivirus cash-cow is not what it once was, with PC shipment slowdowns and the shift to mobile computing another factor driving change there.

“The security industry is obviously really maturing, and — at least on the consumer side — the market has heavily shifted to free and freemium,” noted Steckler. “So there’s a pretty rapidly declining marketshare for companies like Norton and McAfee and Kaspersky.”

But he asserted that Avast and AVG have complementary footprints — with AVG doing well in the English-speaking world and Avast in the non-English speaking world — making the pair a good fit to ride out tougher times together.

“The fact that we have such a large geographic spread allows us to ride much better through the market ups and downs,” he said. “For example, the English language markets are hurt a lot more by the slowdown in PC shipments than the non-English markets. But the English markets monetize much better than the non-English markets, so we have kind of complementary strengths and weaknesses.”

Discussing the shift to mobile computing, Steckler said there are a different set of concerns Avast can (and is) addressing here, via mobile products that focus more on privacy and parental concerns than on traditional malware security threats.

“People use their mobile devices for a lot of different things. You’ve got photos on there, some are sensitive, some are embarrassing, you’ve got children who are using phones while they are driving — you’ve got corporations where phones are being used by employees, sometimes for company use. Sometimes for personal use. So the mobile security market is actually pretty big,” he said.

“It’s not the classic AV but there’s lots of other types of security and privacy products. And this is absolutely one of the reasons why we wanted to buy AVG — because AVG have a really good security product that’s not installed on the phones but is installed at the carrier.”

Running security products directly on phones themselves is pretty limiting, he said — given they are just another siloed app and can be disabled by the user. Which makes working with carriers Avast’s preferred route.

“If you install on the carrier infrastructure you’ve got a lot of things now. For example you can implement a family safety product or geofences so that if your child is driving they can’t text message, or if they’re at school they can’t be using the phone. Or you can control how much data they’re using or what they’re really doing on the mobile device,” he added.

“That’s been a very successful business in the US. It’s in the four US carriers and what we want to do is to move that out of the US and frankly that’s going to be the core of a lot of our mobile business.”

Discussing the company’s strategy for the Internet of Things, he noted Avast already has a security product here, focusing on securing IoT devices via the router. Meanwhile AVG was exploring a different strategy — meaning, again, Steckler sees benefits to combining their different efforts.

But at the end of the day he couches IoT as a fairly simply security nut to crack — given most devices connect to the Internet via a router or network gateway.

“I suspect that most of the security for IoT is going to end up at the cloud or at the network level and not really in the device itself,” he said. “If you think about it, why does your Fitbit need to run security software? It doesn’t talk to the Internet, it talks to the router, so you get the router to protect the Fitbit.”

“Very few of the [IoT] things actually directly connect to the Internet. Most everything connects to the router, which connects to the Internet. So… you don’t need to necessarily protect each device because most of the devices are fairly simplistic. What you need to do is protect the devices from being broken into and the easiest point of doing that is at the network or gateway level. Which is where we do it.”

 

via:  techcrunch

LinkedIn launches new educational site LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn has announced its new educational site LinkedIn Learning which takes advantage of its $1.5 billion acquisition of Lynda.com.

LinkedIn, the career-focused social network with 450 million users, has announced that it will be branching off from job hunting and recruitment into education with the launch of its new site LinkedIn Learning.

In April 2015, the company announced that it would acquire the online education company Lynda.com for $1.5 billion. At that time, LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner revealed that the company was working towards bringing job seekers closer to the jobs and careers they envisioned in their futures.

Now, a year and a half later, LinkedIn has utilized the content and around 9,000 courses from Lynda.com to launch its own e-learning portal that is tailored to individuals but also offers a means for businesses to further train their employees.

LinkedIn Learning offers courses in a variety of subjects including business, technology and creative topics. The new site has plenty to offer users interested in learning anything from programming skills to accounting and it will likely resonate with the social network’s large user base.

Employees will be able to select which courses they would like to take on the site while employers will be able to recommend useful courses to their staff. HR managers will be able to take advantage of LinkedIn’s analytics products to monitor employee progress and to see what courses are being taken by the site’s users in order to gain a point of reference.

LinkedIn education will be available to LinkedIn premium subscribers and they will be able to access 25 new courses every week. The company also plans to release an enterprise tier, so that large organizations can make LinkedIn Learning available to their entire employee base.

 

via:  itproportal