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Most of us understand how overwhelming it can be to move to a new city. Surrounded by a host of options for dining, shopping, daycare, leisure time, auto mechanics, and everything else under the sun, making an educated decision on where to go involves some groundwork. So what is there to do? While many of us will start by going online and checking ...

Earlier this year, in response to reports that Russian actors had used Facebook to disrupt the 2016 election, I wrote a few pieces about how one might go about fixing the problem. I am not sure I have solutions for everything, but what motivates me is the sagging feeling that settles in whenever society throws up its hands and punts. We can do better...

When it comes to business, you're only as good as your reputation. Indeed, your reputation is your brand. It is the substance your logo represents; it is the glue in customer brand loyalty. In a word, reputation is everything. Yet it's not entirely under your control That doesn't mean you are helpless as a victim of false accusations, ratings, or w...

Today's Linux platform accommodates a number of really good financial applications that are more than capable of handling both personal and small-business accounting operations. That was not always the case, however. Not quite 10 years ago, I scoured Linux repositories in a quest for replacement applications for popular Microsoft Windows tools. Ba...

Leaders from Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic last week issued a dire warning that nations around the world haven't been doing enough to ban the development of autonomous weapons -- so-called "killer robots." The groups issued a joint report that calls for a complete ban on these systems before such weap...

Today's customer feedback world is extremely complex, with data coming from a variety of sources. With the growing number of cross-functional teams and silos within an organization, leaders have found it increasingly difficult to capture a 360-degree view of the customer and drive true change While it's clear that problems exist, what's less straig...

You would think that a successful company like Apple would want to learn what ticks off its customers about its products and services, and then fix them. You would think that it would learn that its negative-thinking artificial intelligence assistant, known as "Siri," is ticking off users. Few people want to hear the opinion of a computer, especia...

International e-commerce, while not a new phenomenon, has become more pervasive and sophisticated in recent years. In 2017, 1.66 billion people worldwide purchased goods online, according to Statista. During the same year, global e-retail sales amounted to US$2.3 trillion, and projections indicate that figure will grow to $4.48 trillion by 2021. W...

A news item that surfaced last week was particularly interesting and personal for me. Several years ago, my wife and I invested in a project called "Sanctuary Belize," and, like many of the investors, we were incredibly excited about the prospect of retiring in paradise After a time, things just weren't adding up, which prompted my column, "Tarnish...

Shopping: It's not what it once was. Forget the long drive to the mall and countless hours of browsing. Customers now simply log in from the comfort of their own home to have the world at their fingertips. The massive uptake of e-commerce is an unprecedented shift in consumer behavior, expectations and purchases. The evidence is in the numbers: In...

The Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the Firefox web browser, is expanding a campaign begun last year to help consumers buy safe, secure connected toys and mobile gadgets this holiday season Mozilla's 2018 edition Privacy Not Included buyers' guide offers an assessment of the privacy and security qualities of 70 products, rangi...

Amazon recently disclosed its 2015 decision to scrap a recruitment tool used to hire talent, after finding that it had a bias against women. While this story has been covered sufficiently, there is a much greater story still to tell: A substantial amount of the artificial intelligence technology that currently is used for recruitment and human resources purposes has been acting independently, without any form of regulation, for some time...

The LF Deep Learning Foundation on Wednesday announced the availability of the first software from theAcumos AI Project. Dubbed "Athena," it supports open source innovation in artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning This is the first software release from the Acumos AI Project since its launch earlier this year. The goal is to m...

How do they really know? That's the question that immediately comes to mind in reviewing the top-level data from Voxpro's recent survey of customers and their relationship with chatbots. The data show that 68 percent of consumers haven't used chatbots to contact a brand. About 1,000 people answered the survey How reliable is that number, though? I'...

After taking the popular Battlefield series to "the beginning" with the First World War-based Battlefield 1, developers have returned the action to its World War II roots with Battlefield V Anyone who's not familiar with this first-person shooter (FPS) need know only that the original game, introduced in 2002 as Battlefield 1942 (BF42), offers play...

The shift of live content from traditional broadcast television to online sources has significantly changed the video industry -- and especially, the news media industry. News typically derives its value and attracts viewers with live updates and real-time engagement. The rise of live online alternatives extends those capabilities to nontraditiona...

News flash: Private cloud economics can offer more cost efficiency than public cloud pricing structures Private (or on-premises) cloud solutions can be more cost-effective than public cloud options, according to "Busting the Myths of Private Cloud Economics," a report 451 Research and Canonical released Wednesday. That conclusion counters the notio...

Cybersecurity has been becoming a larger and larger concern for organizations. Nowadays, most organizations -- regardless of size, industry, location, or profit vs. nonprofit status -- find themselves directly or indirectly impacted by cybersecurity. Even though the topic itself is increasing in importance, it remains a truism that many smaller ...

I don't have to tell you how difficult it is to find and attract customers online. With millions and millions of businesses all vying for attention, the Internet has quickly turned into a very crowded place. But, believe it or not, there's opportunity in all that clutter, and if you approach your marketing and visibility right, you can easily rise to the top...

An apparent prefix leak from an errant router misconfiguration caused Google to lose control of several million of its IP addresses for more than an hour on Monday During the event, Internet traffic was misrouted to China and Russia from Nigeria. The incident initially sparked concerns that it might have been a malicious hijacking attempt....