IT LAST STOP

It wasn’t so long ago that people with a high-school diploma, a good work ethic, and a strong body could build solid, middle-class careers in blue-collar jobs like manufacturing and construction. That’s no longer possible. As traditional blue-collar jobs dwindle, another promising category of jobs is growing: jobs that require a baseline of technical skills but not necessarily a four-year degree.  IBM CEO Ginni Rometty calls them “new-collar” jobs  and cites examples like cloud computing analyst and services delivery specialists. If those titles sound unfamiliar, that’s the point. These roles didn’t exist a short while ago, and workers suited to new-collar jobs will need to retrain to meet employers’ needs. The days of front-loading education are gone. All jobs will continue to change as technology evolves and reshapes job requirements. In fact, I think Rometty’s definition of new-collar can and will be expanded as workers experience an ever-accelerating pac...

SAN FRANCISCO(Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s Waymo sought at least $1 billion in damages and a public apology from Uber Technologies Inc as conditions for settling its high-profile trade secret lawsuit against the ride-services company, sources familiar with the proposal told Reuters. The Waymo self-driving car unit also asked that an independent monitor be appointed to ensure Uber does not use Waymo technology in the future, the sources said. Uber rejected those terms as non-starters, said the sources, who were not authorized to publicly discuss settlement talks. The precise dollar amount requested by Waymo and the exact time the offer was made could not be learned. Waymo’s tough negotiating stance, which has not been previously reported, reflects the company’s confidence in its legal position after months of pretrial victories in a case which may help to determine who emerges in the forefront of the fast-growing field of self-driving cars. The aggressive settlement demands also...

Large enterprises are leading the charge on Internet of Things deployments, according to a recent industry survey. Enterprises continue to see value in pursuing the pot of gold at the end of the Internet of Things rainbow, according to the  recent “Voice of the Enterprise” poll conducted by research firm 451 Research. The survey finds that  65.6 percent of respondents plan to increase spending for IoT projects over the next 12 months , with the average spending increase totaling 17.7 percent. As for the size of companies taking the lead on committing to IoT, a greater percentage of firms with 10,000 or more employees plan to increase spending than is the case among small and medium-sized businesses, the survey finds. Among  the biggest IoT spenders are companies that self-identify as “early technology adopters,”  according to the report. 451 Research conducted the survey during May and June 2017. It represents more than 575 completed interviews and 11 hou...

A leading IT and system integration company, Jethro, chooses Ghana as the latest location for its ambitious expansion plans within the continent. To celebrate the launch of JETHRO in Ghana, the company organized an event with the theme: ‘Delivering Banking Innovation through Technology’.  Over 50 guests gathered in Accra to learn more about digital transformation in banking and the world of analytics. Chief Executive Officer of Jethro, Remi Babatunde, said: “The opening of a new office in Accra, is the latest addition to the continuous drive by JETHRO to deliver excellence in all areas of our engagement with our clients.” He said, “While we remain headquartered in London, we have chosen to serve Africa and our presence in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria and now Ghana is testimony to our drive to be closer to our clients as well as reduce the costs of our engagements.” Jethro offers specialist IT services and products, which complement core banking solutions in Business Intell...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The World Solar Challenge began on Sunday with 42 solar cars crossing Australia’s tropical north to its southern shores, a grueling 3,000 km (1,864 mile) race through the outback. The race from the northern city of Darwin to the southern city of Adelaide is expected to take a week for most cars, with speeds of 90-100 kmh (55-62 mph) powered only by the sun. The fastest time was achieved by Japan’s Tokai University in 2009, completing the transcontinetal race in only 29 hours and 49 minutes. Belgian team Punch Powertrain started first on Sunday after recording a trial time of 2:03.8 for 2.97 km (1.78 miles), hitting an average speed of 83.4 kmh (51.5mph). But reigning 2015 champions Nuon from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands believes it has a good chance of retaining the prize. “All the cars look completely different (this year), and all we know is we’ve got a good car, we’ve got it running perfectly the last couple of days and we’re co...

The search giant wants you to buy its new phone. The pitch? The Pixel aims to be good at everything Google's good at. Ever since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone a decade ago, gadget lovers, the press and industry watchers have waited for Google to make its move. The battle  became the stuff of tech lore , akin to the rivalries of the ages: Coke versus Pepsi, Magic versus Bird, Yankees versus Red Sox. So when Google finally released its first branded, flagship phone last year, it fulfilled the fantasies of tech bloggers everywhere. Except the device wasn't called the Google Phone, and at first the name left many people dumbfounded. CEO Sundar Pichai and his team instead went with Pixel, an unproven brand known mostly to a small niche of Google fans. But make no mistake: With generation two of its Pixel phone line, unveiled Wednesday in San Francisco, Google really wants to deliver the  Google Phone . And by that I mean Google wants you to buy this sleek, shiny phone, o...

Facebook whittled down a public report on election meddling to remove mentions to Russia, The Wall Street Journal reports. Facebook  removed all references to Russia from a public report in April concerning manipulation of its platform during the 2016 presidential election, according to a  The Wall Street Journal  report Thursday. Mentions of Russia were eliminated due to concerns among Facebook's lawyers and members of its policy team that the company's understanding of Russian activity was too speculative, the newspaper reported. Ultimately, Facebook  published a 13-page report  on fake news on the platform and the steps it was taking to combat the problem after being shortened by several pages, the Journal reported. The report didn't mention Russia at all, instead concluding that "malicious actors" used false information to sway political opinions on the social network. Facebook said the decision to omit Russia from the report was based on a desir...

A teenager admitted in a British court on Friday to trying to hack into the computers of top US officials, including former CIA chief John Brennan, from his home in the East Midlands region of England. Kane Gamble , 18, pleaded guilty to ten charges related to the attempted intrusions in late 2015 and early 2016, which targeted the US Department of Justice and an array of senior American security officials.  These included James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama; Jeh Johnson, the former US Secretary of Homeland Security; and a deputy director of the FBI. Gamble, from Coalville, Leicester -- a small town 110 miles (177 kilometres) northwest of London -- pleaded guilty to eight charges of performing a function with intent to secure unauthorised access, and two charges of unauthorised acts with intent to impair operation of a computer. He was released on conditional bail ahead of sentencing on December 15. British judges have sentenced def...

Sri Lankan police have arrested two men for allegedly helping international criminals who  hacked into computers at a Taiwan bank and stole millions of dollars, an official said Sunday. The pair were arrested after they tried to withdraw large sums of money that had been wired to their accounts with a Sri Lankan bank branch in the capital Colombo, the official said. The police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was working closely with  Taiwan counterparts to track down the hackers, who are said to have breached the Taiwan bank's computers last week. "We are looking at some $1.3 million that had come into three accounts in Sri Lanka," the official involved with the investigation told AFP, asking not to be named. "We have taken two people into custody and we are looking for one more person." Police in Sri Lanka did not disclose the name of the affected bank in Taiwan or the sum said to have been stolen, but a Sri Lankan media report said tens of m...

For the second time this year, a major public service in the UK, Greater Manchester Police (GMP), has come under public scrutiny for running out-of-date software – specifically, Windows XP. In fact, the  BBC  reported that as many as 1 in 5 GMP devices are still running XP – an extraordinarily high proportion. Earlier this year, of course, the same outdated OS made the UK’s National Health Service the first standout victim of the devastating WannaCry ransomware attack. Over the past 20 years, I have worked with hundreds of public sector organizations in both the U.S. and the UK, helping them keep their Windows systems current. I’ve noticed several common challenges faced by the public sector when it comes to this increasingly difficult challenge. (Some are of these challenges are also prevalent in the private sector, but not to the same degree.) In the public sector, main challenges to staying current are typically application compatibility, budgets and skills. Applicat...

With Apple finally bringing native wireless charging to  its iPhone lineup , the technology will become far more widely adopted, both among consumers and within corporations. Apple chose to use the Qi specification, which uses inductive charging technology, for its iPhone 8 and iPhone X lineup of smartphones. Samsung committed to the same specification for its flagship Galaxy smartphones; in all, about 90 smartphone models use Qi today, making it the industry's most popular among three standards. In addition to desktop charging stations (typically in the form of small charging pads), the automotive marketplace has also adopted in-cabin wireless charging. Nearly 80 car models, from Audi, Chevrolet and KIA to Hyundai, Nissan and BMW, offer in-cabin wireless charging based on the electromagnetic Qi charging specification. There are more than 5,000 public Qi charging locations worldwide, according to the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), the entity in charge of the Qi stan...