When it comes to innovative new technologies, look no further for inspiration than good-old classic science-fiction and pop culture. You might be surprised by how many concepts first seen in works of fiction have made their way into our day-to-day lives. Let’s take a look at some of the more noteworthy examples.
The microprocessor shortage that is affecting businesses all over the world is about to get worse before it gets better. Ukraine currently produces between 45-to-54 percent of the world’s semiconductor-grade neon, a critical component for the lasers used to make microchips. With Russia invading the sovereign nation, two of the largest neon-refinement companies, Ingas and Cryoin have halted production, leaving an already massively short market in dire straits.
Each year we try to come up with a creative Christmas article that ties IT into one of the many holiday fables, but this year we thought we would just forgo the pageantry and talk a little bit about how important our client’s are and what we can do to help take them where they want to go.
As cliche as it sounds, one of the best ways to create a more positive workplace is to simply put more positivity into it. Let’s exercise this for a moment by setting the often-talked-about worst-case scenario to the side, and focus on what the optimal experience could be with the right technology management in place.
Have you ever wondered how it is that people can build up bad habits over time, yet break them and establish better ones? Have you also noticed how difficult it can be to break habits that have been ingrained into the very fibers of our being over an extended period of time? Believe it or not, people can change, and the science behind it—neuroplasticity—can provide some valuable insights into how to make it happen.
Those born in the 80s (as well as some others) will likely recognize
“Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-Select-Start” as the Konami Code, a famous cheat code that first appeared in 1986. Since then, the Konami Code has spread, now being featured in software titles and websites. Let’s consider the origins of the Konami Code, and how it has been featured in the zeitgeist.
Generally speaking, we all get way too much screen time nowadays, between the workstations we all spend our days in front of to the televisions we watch in the evening to the mobile devices that are never far out of reach. While plenty of people have weighed in on the subject, some of the most interesting insights come from scholarly research: the more notifications a person gets, the more their productivity suffers.
While we would never suggest that remote work is a bad thing, it wouldn’t be right for us to pretend that it is a perfect solution. It just isn’t. For a few glaring examples, let’s turn to the complicated impact that remote work can have on the environment. While we’ll still acknowledge the benefits of remote solutions, this kind of reflection may just help you to determine how to shape your business’ future: namely, how much of that future will be based on remote operations.
In the United States, the political atmosphere in 2020 was extremely testy and one element that we typically keep our eyes on is the net neutrality rules that seem to change every few years or so. Today, we thought we’d revisit the issue and tell you what to expect over the first few months of the new administration.
While some places get to take the holiday season off to some extent, other establishments are at their busiest—and as such, don’t have time for any inefficiencies. Let’s meet an employee from such an establishment, located far up north, to learn about how any workplace might benefit operationally from managed IT services.
There is no denying that gifts are a major part of the typical festivities around this time of year, so it only seems that having some ideas as to what you’d like to receive to share with others is a helpful contribution. As our way of helping, we’ve decided to share a few tech-based suggestions that would find a welcome home in any home office or remote workspace.
It’s probably fair to label social media as one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century. Nearly half of the world’s population are active users of social media; and, that number would almost certainly be higher if more people had access to unencumbered broadband. Over the past few weeks, however, one of the most utilized social media services, the microblogging website Twitter, has sparked some controversy after they added an amendment to a tweet sent by the U.S. President Donald Trump suggesting it contained “potentially misleading information”. Today, we’ll briefly discuss what this showdown with the White House means for social media companies.
It’s never an easy thing to talk about, but it does need to be talked about. If one of your key employees were to pass away, how would it affect your business? How do you prepare for this type of inevitability?
Parker sat at his desk looking at a business card. He watched the snow fall lightly outside his window. He was the last person left in the office, as he typically was this time of year. He put down the business card and got up and walked over to the large pane of glass that was the only insulation from the harsh, cold wintery night. He placed his hand on the window and felt the bitter cold meet the palm of his hand. He stood there for a minute; maybe more than a minute. He began to cry. He was so angry at how things were going.
Facebook’s servers process a massive amount of data each day… which only makes sense, considering their 2.4 billion active users. Unfortunately, the social network has had some issues over the past few years with data privacy. Whether you use Facebook as a social networking tool for your personal life, your business, or both, you need to know how to best take control of your own privacy on the platform.
The IT guy, Jacob left last month: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. He left without an exit interview, and he didn’t seem very pleased with the way the situation played out. You could never tell if Scrooge cared or not. His demands have never wavered. He expected perfection and when mistakes were made, they were approached as catastrophic affronts to the sustainability of the business, even if that wasn’t the reality.
There are a variety of web browsers out there, and that variety is much larger than most people think. While most can list off the main ones: Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox, there are many more to consider. However, the real question remains: which one is best for you?
Are you drowning in old computer cables? Do they sit in a drawer and take up space? Chances are that you’ll have quite a lot of old cables that are sitting around collecting dust due to your organization picking up new devices that come with even more new cables. Sure, you might think you still need that old 25-pin serial cable for that legacy scanner from 1997, but it’s probably time to let go. While there is some merit to keeping old cables around just in case, the proper alternative to throwing out unneeded cables is to recycle them.
Figuring out how to utilize platforms that depend on machine learning to boost an organization’s bottom line is one of the biggest puzzles for every modern business owner. After all, seemingly every new technology concept can be leveraged into enhanced profitability if it is rolled out right. In this case, many organizations have found ways to use human-created machines to learn how to do tasks that would be deemed too expensive if humans were to do them.
In a recent poll by WSJ/NBC comparing tech companies to US presidential candidates, Google came out on top with 67 percent of respondents having a positive opinion of the company. Compare this to Apple’s 54 percent, and 43 percent going to the highest-rated candidate. Perhaps Apple and the politicians can take a cue from Google and make use of Easter eggs, because who doesn’t love Easter eggs?
