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Storage and memory are beginning to merge, e.g., 3D Xpoint, a technology from Intel and Micron that can serve as memory, storage, or both. In response, a new consortium, called Gen-Z, is creating a new specification and architecture that will make it easier to add new forms of non-volatile memory to computers. Data transfer speeds for the new specification will be tens to hundreds of gigabytes per second, much faster than the speed of the upcoming PCI-Express 4.0, which offers 32GBps. Initially, the new architecture will be targeted at servers and data centers by consortium customers that include top server companies IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell and Lenovo, and storage and memory vendors Samsung, Seagate, Micron, Western Digital and SK Hynix.
Business News Daily states that they use precise, repeatable testing procedures to evaluate tech products. They recently put their methodology to work to find the best Dell laptops for business users. Here are their results:
- Best Dell Business Laptop Overall: Dell Latitude 14 7000 (E7470)
- Best Value for Dell Business Laptop: Dell Latitude 15 3000 (3570)
- Best 2-in-1 Dell Business Laptop: Dell Latitude 12 7000 2-in-1
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The number of organizations using cloud-based email is growing rapidly, yet regulatory, security, and migration challenges abound. One company that helps organizations migrate their email between archive platforms, including both cloud and on premise offerings, is TransVault. The company notes that migrations are usually straightforward, but that you can often expect to experience issues with email archives. Proponents argue that moving email to the cloud avoids capital expenses, increases resiliency and reduces staffing demands.
AvailabilityGuard/Enterprise is an IT Operations Analytics solution that helps proactively detect misconfigurations and ensure service availability levels. The software automatically scans your IT infrastructure in a non-intrusive, read-only mode. It collects up-to-date configuration information from servers and clusters, storage devices, virtual infrastructure, database servers, and from the networks that connect them across physical, virtual, and hybrid environments. After scanning, it performs analytics on that big data collected and pinpoints any single-points-of-failure or other misconfigurations that can lead to potential downtime and data loss. The newest version 7.2 features a new Infrastructure Resiliency Snapshot Report that will provide IT executives with one-click visibility to IT downtime and data loss risks.
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Cash remained the most frequently used retail payment instrument last year, according to a new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco report. More than 50 percent of transactions under $25, and 60 percent of transactions under $10, were made with cash. While households with higher incomes are more likely to prefer credit and less likely to prefer cash, all income groups make roughly the same number of cash transactions per month. However, it is important to note that cash`s share of all transactions fell approximately eight percentage points while debit and credit cards increased two and four percentage points to 27 and 21 percent, respectively.
Interact Software states that they currently have more than one million software agents spread over 5 continents. They say that they can monitor an ATM as easily as a simple workstation. Their IA-ATM module generates alerts by specific events (non-availability, performances, etc.) and provides detailed monitoring reports for all transactions (deposit, withdrawal, etc.).
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Research from StatCounter Global Stats found that mobile has passed desktop as the top source of Web traffic worldwide. 51.3% of Internet usage in October 2016 came from mobile devices, while 48.7% came from desktop access. However, the US market sees 58% of Internet usage from desktop and only 42% from mobile, but the report's authors still warn that "this should be a wakeup call especially for small businesses, sole traders and professionals to make sure that their websites are mobile friendly. Many older websites are not."
Entersekt says that their Transakt solution`s unique digital certificate identifier turns a mobile device “into a trusted second factor of authentication.” The integration of X.509 digital certificate technology provides out-of-band, two factor authentication and asymmetric identification of the mobile device, without the customer having to switch apps. They say that it counters phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks through dynamic certificate pinning.
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According to a report by the Aberdeen Group entitled “The Last Mile in IT Security: Changing User Behaviors,” the proportion of infections that result from user behaviors is estimated at between 70% and 95%. Security education proponents claim that malware infections can be reduced by 45% to 70% through user awareness and training. They point to estimates that show that globally 8 million phishing email messages are opened every day, and of those, 800,000 recipients of the malicious messages click on the embedded links. Finally, about 10% of the people who click on a link actually give their information over to the phishing scammers.
The NSFOCUS Next Generation Intrusion Prevention System (NGIPS) uses a multi-layer approach to identifying and addressing known, zero-day and advanced persistent threats to help protect organizations from malware, data leakage, brute force cracking, protocol attacks, scanning/probing, web threats and more. Their approach combines signature and behavior based detection, protocol and traffic anomaly detection, correlation analysis, deep packet inspection and the latest threat intelligence to help detect malicious sites and botnets.
BioCatch has upgraded their behavioral biometrics online and on mobile solution to version 2.0. They state that the new release features fast processing of risk-score calculation, providing real-time behavioral insights, as well as a new graphical user interface for the “Analyst Station”, which helps fraud teams to further investigate and analyze fraud cases. There is also enhanced robotic and malware detection in the new version.
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Digital Differentiation Strategies
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Javelin Strategy & Research - http://www.javelinstrategy.com
Read Mark Schwanhausser's comments: https://www.banktt.com/Javelin.pdf |
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RLR Management Consulting - https://rlrmgmt.com
Read Mitch Razook's comments: https://www.banktt.com/RLR.pdf |
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Some community banks offer sales tools on their websites that tout potential savings that encourage consumers to switch over to their bank. In action, the future customer chooses their products on the left side of the Savings Estimator, and the cumulative savings is shown on the right. Product options can include: first mortgage, HELOC, auto loan, rewards credit card, dividend rewards checking, money market account, and certificates.
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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
Self Bank, a Spanish online bank, had developed a sophisticated customer onboarding platform that combines videoconferencing, biometrics and electronic signatures. They claim that the new digital registration process allows anyone to complete all of the steps necessary to open and use a fully operative account in just a few minutes. The system captures essential documents on camera and applies facial recognition to authenticate user identities. Once enrolled, customers can sign up for any of the bank's products immediately using electronic signatures.
PayKey is an Israeli startup that makes payments in all social network (Facebook`s Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) chats possible. It relies on the mobile phone`s keyboard to facilitate the payments via a payment button that can be branded to any FI. PayKey was founded in 2014 and recently won the DEMOvation Challenge.
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In 2015, AT&T more than doubled its local area Ethernet footprint, and plans to grow another 30 percent by 2020. While Ethernet is a technology and a network in itself, it`s also the gateway to enterprise IP VPNs and the Internet - it can seamlessly connect the offices of an organization whether they are 5, 500 or even 5,000 miles apart. Switched Ethernet on Demand offers some powerful features: organizations can quickly add or change services, order additional sites, ramp up bandwidth capacity and manage the network in real time via an online portal.
A new type of cable technology called "DOCSIS 3.1" is beginning to enter the market, and it delivers very high speed service over existing cable TV wires at much lower prices than fiber-based Internet. DOCSIS delivers speeds of up to 1Gbps over existing cable TV lines, however connections are asymmetrical, so its downloads are much faster than uploads. For example, Comcast has a service called Gigabit Internet that provides download speeds of 1Gbps and upload speeds of about 35Mbps.
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SpeechiQ is a software package that helps contact center managers and QA personnel analyze recorded calls for quality, compliance, sales effectiveness and more. The company uses a proprietary automated speech recognition engine that can be cloud-based platform or on premise. It also features automated sensitive data redaction, advanced search capabilities (by date range, office, skill, agent, caller phone number, etc.) and allows for call recording storage for as long as you specify.
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