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There is no doubt that solid state drives (SSDs) perform better and are faster than traditional spinning hard disks. Some industry analysts are predicting SSDs will surpass HDDs in capacity and achieve parity in pricing by the end of 2016. Yet HDD proponents contend that HDDs remain significantly less expensive than SSDs in terms of dollar/physical capacity available. They also note that some SSD suppliers use comparisons for cost that use a 5-10x deduplication ratio for SSDs and none for HDDs even though deduplication can be done whether using SSDs or HDDs.
The Dell SonicWALL TZ Wireless Firewall Series combines the performance of Dell SonicPoints, which use 802.11 technology, and Dell SonicWALL firewalls. scan wireless (802.11ac) traffic coming into and going out of the network, decontaminate it from network threats, and utilize deep packet inspection. You can implement multiple zones of access for both wired and wireless users, while running intrusion prevention, network-based anti-malware with cloud assist, content and URL filtering, and anti-spam services.
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After about a month since its release, Microsoft says that more than 75 million devices are now running Windows 10. That includes more than 90,000 different PC or tablet models - even some devices manufactured as long ago as 2007. In terms of business uptake, some analysts predict that it could be the second half of next year before larger organizations have done all the testing necessary to get serious about Windows 10. But in general the download numbers suggest that Windows 10 is doing a lot better than Windows 8 and maybe better than Windows 7 so far.
While Windows remains the most popular desktop operating system, the most popular operating system on the public cloud is Ubuntu Linux. According to RightScale's latest State of the Cloud report, Amazon Web Services (AWS) dominates the public cloud, with 57% of market, while Microsoft's Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is second with 12%. Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company, is also putting considerable efforts behind OpenStack for the private and hybrid cloud. The result is that Ubuntu dominates OpenStack clouds almost as much as it does the public cloud with 53% of all production OpenStack clouds running Ubuntu.
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Millennials are more likely than other consumers to find their mobile banking apps lacking, according to survey results from SNL Financial. 61% even went so far as to say that they would be willing to switch financial institutions in order to obtain features they were currently missing. Their most-desired missing features are:
- 19% view savings account rates
- 17% mortgage calculators
- 16% have the ability to compare mortgage rates
Person-to-person payment capabilities were popular with all age groups: 16% of millennial banking app users and 15% of non-millennial banking app users said they missed having P2P features as part of their mobile banking apps.
Soundpays claims that their mobile wallet is an entirely unique system in the world of mobile payments and the first to enable secure transactions with nothing more than regular sound waves. It sends an inaudible message to your smart phone which allows you to pay with one click on your device. The Toronto-based company says that their system works on all mobile phones, requires only a microphone/speaker and Internet connection to work, and that there is no merchant hardware to install.
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Vidder's PrecisionAccess solution can be defined as a "a Software Defined Perimeter" and they say that it is the next phase of security for high value assets. In action, it shrinks the perimeter down to a single application, and then provides secure connectivity only to a select group of authorized users and their specific devices. It incorporates PKI, NAC, identity management, firewalls and VPNs. Vidder offers their solution as a single tenant service via the cloud, or on-premise. They deploy their controller and their application gateways, help a company deploy their device-based software, and assist in setting up the application interface to the gateway and the interface to the identity management system and/or single sign-on system.
The Cost of Phishing and Value of Employee Training report says that a comprehensive security training program with a continuous training methodology can improve the phishing email click rate an average of 64 percent. Research firm Ponemon Institute says that their research shows that employees who have undergone security training are far less likely to fall victim to a phishing attack. Ponemon found that employees waste an average of 4.16 hours annually due to phishing scams.
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Online and Mobile Banking:
Using Digital Technology to Create Value for Customers
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Cognizant - http://www.cognizant.com
Read Steven DeLaCastro's comments: https://www.banktt.com/Cognizant.pdf |
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FI-MOBILE - http://www.fi-mobile.com
Read Dan Chaney's comments: https://www.banktt.com/FI-MOBILE.pdf |
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Javelin Strategy & Research - http://www.javelinstrategy.com
Read Mary Monahan's comments: https://www.banktt.com/Javelin.pdf |
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While nearly half of all U.S. consumers believe nontraditional providers will drive innovation in the financial services industry, only 38 percent said they would consider a nontraditional provider for future financial services needs, according to a survey from Raddon Financial Group. Not surprisingly, younger consumers are much more likely to use nontraditional providers such as PayPal, Amazon, Apple or Google. RFG concludes that “innovation is essential if banks want to remain at the center of consumer`s financial lives, as younger consumers have no qualms about going elsewhere if their demand for digital and mobile financial services are not being met.”
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Facebook is gradually rolling out person-to-person payments via their “Messenger” app that supports Visa and MasterCard debit cards. Many analysts say that the new service is ultimately designed to help Facebook users buy more products and services from its advertisers. The social media giant says that their goal is to offer P2P payments for free to make Messenger “more useful, expressive and delightful.” Of course, the final goal may be to enable the ability to easily purchase products directly from Facebook advertisers via stored debit cards.
In a recent MasterCard Survey on the Emotions of Safety and Security, research showed that a majority of consumers (69%) use chip cards or plan to use them soon, with nearly one-third (32%) already using them regularly. Unfortunately, the majority of small businesses are not ready for the October 1st liability shift - about 47% of merchant terminals are EMV-compliant, according to MasterCard. Meanwhile, the Payment Security Taskforce estimates that EMV cards in market are expected to reach 63% by year end and 98% by the end of 2017.
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Tor is free software for enabling anonymous communication which is increasingly being used for SQL injection and distributed denial-of-service attacks as well as vulnerability reconnaissance activities. Tor, which gives users the ability to mask their identity and location via layers of anonymity, was the platform for some 150,000 attacks and malicious events out of the US alone so far this year, according to IBM. Big Blue says that networks should be configured to deny access to websites such as www.torproject.org or any other sites associated with anonymous proxies or anonymization services such as Tor and The Invisible Internet Project (I2P).
Samsung is floating a proposal to launch 4,600 micro-satellites that could stream one zettabyte of data per month - enough capacity to provide 200GB per month to five billion Internet users. Their vision calls for a "space internet," delivered by a network of micro-satellites situated below 1,200 miles in altitude. Placing satellites in low-earth orbit would prevent the connection from suffering the latency issues people associate with satellite Internet.
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ShoreTel has introduced ShoreTel Connect Contact Center as a solution scalable to 1,000 users for both ShoreTel Connect CLOUD and ShoreTel Connect ONSITE. It includes a new agent interface and integrates CRM applications such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Desk.com, and NetSuite. The new platform also offers capabilities such as embedded call control, screen pops, click-to-call, and call activity record correlation with business data.
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