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With hurricane season in full bloom and the additional prospect of natural disasters, the importance for companies to have disaster data plans in place is paramount. Companies that fail to make recovery plans for their electronic gear and essential data are inviting serious financial injury when an emergency strikes....

New studies reveal how solid personalization in marketing drives brand loyalty, but consumers feel brands fail to do enough to recognize them as individuals Formation, a company using artificial intelligence to drive loyalty programs for brands like Starbucks and United Airlines, released a report on Wednesday with data that shows that the more per...

A growing list of companies shares a common problem with Apple Stores. Technology may be the only solution as workers wait to return to their corporate workplace as the pandemic resurgence materializes Apple Stores recently tried to reopen but had to shut down again amid continuing COVID-19 infections. It only took a few weeks for Apple to close it...

Average computer users would be forgiven for not having any idea what PGP is. There is so much going on below the surface of the modern computing experience that even critically important security tools like PGP are tucked away. To be sure, there are specialized circles that make regular explicit use of PGP. Diligent Linux users would have at leas...

As consumers get more acquainted with shopping and banking digitally, it seems logical that more people would be inclined to pay their bills online A consumer billing and payment trends and behaviors survey by ACI Worldwide shows that nearly 70 percent of respondents prefer digital payment options such as website and mobile app channels to pay one-...

The U.S. has a history of killing companies critical to its future. With the original Standard Oil, that company had gained too much political power, but in breaking up the company, the U.S. government gave control of the oil market to the Middle East. RCA had too much power, and when the U.S. broke up the company, it gave that consumer market to post-war Japan...

Who can forget Princess Leia's hologram asking for Obi-Wan Kenobi's help in the movie Star Wars? That was perhaps the best-known hologram of the many used in the Star Wars franchise movies, but the power and promise of holographic technology have been depicted in science fiction stories for years The starship Voyager's chief medical officer in Star...

Curbside service is one of the more popular strategies that businesses and consumers now use to navigate the 'new normal'. They can order online, show up at a business, pick up their items, and be on their way. Ideally, it's a contactless, convenient experience for all involved "Curb demands from multiple users have increased over the past few year...

The growing work-from-home movement amid the coronavirus and its likely continuing challenges has created the need for additional broadband capacity in more places. Mobile telcos and other service providers are rallying around 5G wireless as the most promising solution for reliably faster Internet connectivity But the path to rolling out 5G -- whic...

Whether you like it or not, disputes do arise from time to time. For example, disputes arise about early termination, delay of deliverables, breach of performance, or the like, so it is best to plan for the worst and hope for the best. Part 5 of this series was about mediating disputes, which could solve the problem before litigation or arbitration...

Earthquake alerts are being incorporated into Android, Google's mobile operating system, the company announced Tuesday The feature will be included in a refresh of Google Mobile Services, so a full operating system upgrade won't be necessary. That means the new addition will be available to most Android users -- except those in China, which doesn'...

Calculate Linux is an impressively different Linux operating system This is a distribution designed with home and SMB users in mind. It has expanded its user interface into an appealing selection of desktop choices over the years....

Apple's "Walled Garden" was built to protect consumers from malicious applications, but it can also protect the company from competition, as Microsoft and Facebook discovered recently Late last week, Apple refused to allow Microsoft to offer its xCloud streaming gaming app for iOS and iPadOS at the Apple App Store. At the same time, it approved a s...

If the ongoing struggles amid the pandemic have taught retailers anything, it is the need to automate their customer service experience. Customer experience automation (CXA) is making the difference between hanging on until closing down and ensuring more returning customers CXA can revitalize a merchant's customer relations process to drive more sa...

The emergency caused by the novel coronavirus is causing deep structural changes to how we do business. We don't sell or market the way we did before the virus, and it may be some time before we return to that model -- if indeed we ever do Even before the emergency, market research conducted by Beagle Research (my company, full disclosure) has conc...

2020 began a decade that I think will be defined by irony. I'll skip over the prominent political examples and jump right into social media and drill down to focus on Facebook Last week we ran a survey asking people which of the CEOs who were questioned by Congress last month is the most trustworthy. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg took the dubious priz...

Salesforce continues to offer new products in an expanding demonstration of its platform's relevance to business and society at large Lately they've focused on the COVID-19 crisis with products like the recently introduced Salesforce Anywhere, which helps businesses better organize their suddenly far flung affairs resulting from people working remo...

Though initially isolating, the coronavirus pandemic has spawned a whole new world of digital parties and get-togethers. People stuck at home are finding innovative ways to socialize, participating in everything from virtual beer tastings to online book club meetings While the event landscape has been permanently altered by this shift, people and b...

Amazon has cleared a major regulatory hurdle in its quest to deliver Internet service to unserved and underserved areas of the earth The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved, with some conditions, Amazon's Kuiper Project, a US$10 billion low-orbit constellation made up of more than 3,000 satellites....

The Linux Foundation on Monday announced the formation of the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) as the latest initiative to improve software security OpenSSF is a cross-industry collaboration that brings together industry leaders to improve the security of open-source software by building a broader community with targeted initiatives and be...