Category: Analysis

Open Street Map Open Street Map is an open source map of the world, created and amended by people all over the planet. It emphasizes local knowledge, so if you’re in a city and know of a new route or location, you can feel free to add it. There are many types of contributors, from mapping enthusiasts, to professionals, to humanitarians that help add things during disasters. The map shown here was listed as a great example of a community-made map of Pompeii, Italy. Image: Open Street Map Citymaps Citymaps is a…

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People will be talking about the terrible 2014 Q1 for years. IDC has just revealed one of the worst storage quarters for a couple of years as buyers went on a high-end storage strike. There’s been a quite spectacular slump in the storage business in the first 2014 quarter, according to the beancounters’ Storage Tracker. Notwithstanding the digital-universe-drowning-us-in-Big-Data narrative, the actual storage market shrank this quarter. Here’s the bare bones IDC statement: “The total (internal plus external) disk storage systems market generated $7.3 billion in revenue, representing a decrease of -6.9…

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With fewer defects being found in major open source projects than in large proprietary software packages, what are the security strengths and weaknesses of open source development?  Is open source software more or less prone to show-stopping bugs than proprietary alternatives? The answer is likely ‘it depends’, but both arguments have been put forward forcefully online in the wake of the Heartbleed bug in the Open SSL code library, which went undiscovered by the open source community for two years. One firm that has been poring over open source and proprietary…

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Carilion Clinic, a network of health care centers based in Roanoke, Va., wanted a more accurate way to identify patients at risk for heart failure, so it turned to Big Data analysis and electronic health records (EHRs). What’s at stake: Heart failure affects about 5.1 million U.S. adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With predictive analytics, health care providers can track early signs of heart failure risk before illness strikes. In addition to saving lives, health care costs can be kept in check as doctors improve medical…

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Despite IT professionals embracing the Internet of Things, they are not sufficiently prepared for it IT professionals are not sufficiently prepared for the Internet of Things, despite thinking it will have a big impact in the workplace. The research, carried out by Spiceworks, has discovered that although 71 per cent of IT professionals think the Internet of Things will affect their business, 59 per cent have not taken action to prepare for the impact it could have in their workplace. Of those preparing, 68 per cent are investing in hardware…

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Duolingo (Free) Each day, the business world becomes more of a global society. Whether online or on your phone, here are 10 tools that can help you learn a foreign language. You can use either Duolingo‘s app or the website to practice vocabulary, grammar, speaking, and listening through translation. Duolingo also has a gamification element that lets the user earn gems (lingots) that can be used purchase things like extra hearts (think lives in a video game). Available for iOS and Android. Anki ($24.99) Anki is a flashcard system meant to compliment its computer version,…

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While the interest and buzz around the Internet of Things (IoT) has grown steadily in recent years, the seemingly endless market promise continues to become reality. According to new research from International Data Corporation (IDC), a transformation is underway that will see the worldwide market for IoT solutions grow from $1.9 trillion in 2013 to $7.1 trillion in 2020. IDC defines the Internet of Things as a network of networks of uniquely identifiable endpoints (or “things”) that communicate without human interaction using IP connectivity – be it “locally” or globally.…

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34 Sites To Download Royalty Free and Creative Commons Music For Teachers   Archive’s audio and MP3 library : This library contains over two hundred thousand free digital recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music uploaded by our users. Many of these audios and MP3s are available for free download. ArtistServer : Free independent music, 11,000 mp3 downloads by more than 10,000 artists. Audiofarm : It´s the best and easiest way to find new and interesting music,…

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For years, economic pressures drove many companies to outsource their contact center operations overseas, allowing workers in Eastern Europe, India, or the Philippines to field their customer complaints or questions for a much lower hourly rate than they would have to pay Americans to do the same job. Many now agree that this was probably penny-wise and pound-foolish. “Decision-makers, when they’re looking to move their contact center services, are lured by inexpensive employees overseas. They’re not looking at everything else, to the detriment of their company,” says Gabriel Bristol, president…

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A new Web revolution is picking up steam, and the next Google or Microsoft could emerge from the companies that are in the vanguard. SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) – Things are really crackling in Silicon Valley these days. There’s the frenzied startup action, the rising rivers of VC cash, even the occasional bubble-icious long-term stock prediction (Google $2,000, anyone?). There’s so much happening that the buzzword recently employed to try to encapsulate the era — “Web 2.0” — now seems hopelessly inadequate, defined and redefined into near meaninglessness by…

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