Category: Comments & opinions

The European Court of Justice rules that citizens’ telecommunications data can be retained only in cases of severe necessity, overturning EU guidelines. The issue has proven highly controversial in Germany. The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday (08.04.2014) that current EU guidelines on the mass retention of citizens’ telecommunications data are not in accordance with the basic rights to which Europeans are entitled. The judges described the directives, which stem from the European Commission, as a “particularly serious” infringement of the “respect for private life and to the protection of…

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The new Microsoft, under the leadership of Satya Nadella, is making some smart moves Today’s Microsoft is a new company. While it’s true that many of the changes announced under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella were initiated under his predecessor, Steve Ballmer, it’s still clear that this isn’t the same old company: It’s barbecuing sacred cows and embracing smart new directions. Here are four surprising things Microsoft has embraced publicly in the past week or so that reveal a new and better company. 1. The iPad Four years ago,…

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Each morning, an average of nine million packages arrive at FedE locations across the globe. The company never knows what will come through the doors each day, but by that evening those packages are speeding toward their destinations in as many as 220 countries and territories. How does the company that pioneered the use of Big Data to serve its customers do it? The answer can be traced to a statement, in 1978, by FedEx founder and chairman Fred Smith: “The information about the package is as important as the…

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The mysteries of direct marketing stretch far and wide in the business world. Many of us do it, almost all of us are on the receiving end of it (perhaps without even realizing it), but only a handful of us are doing it right. Customer acquisition is generally your biggest cost when it comes to marketing to a new audience, but capitalizing on the needs of your existing customers is how you make the most. If they’re already spending money, the barrier to getting them to spend more money is much lower,…

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Big data. It’s a term that has grown in popularity in the past couple of years to the point that, these days, you can hardly type ‘technology’ into Google without big data showing high in the results somewhere. Many assume that big data is just for large corporations, who produce such a huge amount of data it’s created a skills gap in the people who can disseminate it. However, SMBs can benefit from big data too and this puts them, potentially, on a level playing field with the big boys. This doesn’t…

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Digital marketing differs from the traditional one and it’s full of different challenges, such as proliferation of different channels, strong competition and the exploding data volumes. This is a serious business and it simply can’t exist and function without different marketing tools. The Internet is full of them and sometimes it’s quite hard to choose the best one, precisely for your needs. You may know about different wide-spread marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Word Press and SEOMoz. They’re really high-rated and many people are using them. But every expert…

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I’ve heard from many customers and partners that they want an optimized and flexible architecture for their new or future infrastructure, and I would like to voice my concerns about this point of view when looking at new datacenter architectures. Let’s start by going back a bit to the 2nd platform that has served us so well for the last 15 years. The start of that platform consisted of somewhat standardized servers running an application or two, and the last few years we’ve been loading those servers with several virtualized…

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You might think that tablets and smartphones are the last word in mobility, but they’re just the beginning. Mobile technology already lies at the heart of modern business. Where once enterprise computing was all about the desktop PC, these days it’s drifting in favour of ultra-mobile laptops, tablets and smartphones. Workers are rejecting the old-style, PC-focused one-size-fits-all approach and reaching for the right tool for the job at hand, even if it’s their own device. Meanwhile, IT managers and CIOs are working feverishly to support them. In an always online,…

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Bio hackers have no intention of waiting for further advances in human evolution. They are instead trying to improve their bodies by using hightech implants. According to a survey conducted by the digital industry asso-ciation BITKOM1, every eighth person in the Federal Republic of Germany already measures their fitness values in some way. However, conventional pulse, step or calorie counters are often not enough for bio hackers. They basically consider the human body to be built quite poorly and hope to help advance evolution by using advanced technology. For instance,…

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To keep an eye on his child via his smartphone, Marc Gilbert installed Internet-connected video baby monitors in his home in Houston. One evening, Gilbert heard a stranger’s voice bellowing obscenities from the monitor. He disconnected the device after realizing that it had been hacked. “I’m a pretty technical guy, and I thought I knew how all this stuff should be hooked up,” said Gilbert, who has written several letters to his congressman and other elected officials, trying to bring the security issue to their attention. Field day For decades,…

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