With a vulnerability appearing on the scene, we felt it was an appropriate time to peel back the curtain on a technology we all use daily but rarely question: Bluetooth. Given the nickname of King Harald Gormsson, who famously united disparate Scandinavian tribes back in the 10th century, the technology unites our headphones, mice, and keyboards. Unfortunately, even the strongest alliances have their weak points.
Do you remember when you were able to Google something and get the answer immediately, and not have to scroll past ads, sponsored results, and a not-totally-reliable answer hallucinated by an AI? You aren’t the only one. This trend of gradually declining quality in the products and services we all rely on has a very specific, descriptive name that efficiently captures what is happening to tech while also making all our feelings about it exceptionally clear.
In 2022, technology critic and author Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification.” The term was named the Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society in 2023, even beating out “AI.” It has proved so resonant that its use has expanded beyond social media platforms to include hardware, software, and technology in general.
Technology works wonders for business, but it also enables other organizations, like law enforcement. We aren’t here to argue ethics, but we would like to touch on some of the technology that certain agencies are using in the execution of their jobs. Specifically, we want to highlight the issues involving the very sophisticated AI and data-mining platforms, such as those developed by Palantir.
The idea of a four-day workweek (where employees work the same schedule, minus one day a week) has long been campaigned for, with numerous anecdotes supporting its efficacy. One very successful example is provided by the nation of Iceland, which implemented initial trials of reduced work with just under 1 percent of its population, or about 2,500 people, back in 2015.
These efforts have increased over the years, and today, almost 90% of Icelandic workers work 36 hours per week with no negative ramifications to the economy. In fact, Iceland’s society has enjoyed significant benefits during this experiment.
There are a few occasions that we get a very apparent example of how important basic cybersecurity is, regardless of where you are, and this year’s National Football League draft is one such example.
For those who don’t follow the NFL or the draft proceedings, multiple draftees received prank calls during the process, although one in particular is applicable to businesses of all kinds. Let’s examine this situation to reinforce a few critical cybersecurity best practices.
Does your business have an internal IT department or dedicated IT resource? We know it’s hard sometimes to find the talent you’re looking for, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Here are some of the issues you’ll want to keep in mind if you want to get an IT technician on your staff.
It isn’t uncommon for many people to make up an answer that they feel seems plausible if asked something they don’t have an answer to. It happens all the time.
As it turns out, this is a tendency that artificial intelligence has inherited from us.
We can’t tell the future—no one really can—but it is both possible and vital to make predictions based on present trends and current events. Let’s look forward to the rest of this year to see what predictions we can make for business IT and the notes we should all take over the next few months.
In the United States, tax season is prime time for hackers to take advantage of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. They do this through all kinds of nefarious activities, such as phishing attacks conducted through text messages and emails claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service. If you want to avoid getting scammed this tax season, be sure to keep the following tips in mind to stay safe while you conduct your typical tax routines.
Despite some of the headlines that we saw last year, it wasn’t all bad news regarding ransomware. Critically, 2024 saw ransomware payments plummet by hundreds of millions of dollars… despite many large-scale attacks and one record-breaking whaling payment of $75 million by one victim.
This is undeniably great to hear… but with that in mind, we cannot let ourselves slip into complacency.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Today is a day to celebrate love, romance, and every butterfly that has ever fluttered in a stomach. However, the greatest loves can bring the greatest sorrow… particularly when the time comes to say goodbye.
Take Windows 10, for instance. PC users have loved the OS for a decade, but in a few short months, it will no longer be a good relationship for anyone—particularly business users—to maintain.
Net neutrality has long been an embattled topic, with rules flipping every few years depending on the opinions of those with influence. Recently, the Federal Communications Commission had its most recent net neutrality policy struck down by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals… in such a way that sets the concept back to square one.
Let’s discuss why this is a particularly dangerous decision, and very well could put small and medium-sized businesses at a distinct disadvantage moving forward.
With the price of hardware at risk of skyrocketing, it’s no wonder that many businesses are looking to virtualize as much of their operations as they can. This is where the cloud comes in; you can virtualize just about any solution, including some that you might not have considered in the past. Let’s explore how an SMB might use virtualization and cloud computing to skirt hardware acquisition costs.
We’re all aware of the outage that Facebook experienced a few weeks before it announced its Meta rebrand, which prevented users around the world from accessing the services that the social media giant provides. While it may not sound like a huge deal that people couldn’t share their thoughts with one another for a short time, the ramifications stretched far beyond the inability to scroll through a Newsfeed.
Cloudflare has foiled the plans of yet another major hacking attack, a record-breaking DDoS attack of the likes we have never before seen. Let’s examine what goes into such an attack and what you can do to keep your business safe from their influence.
Quiet quitting…it’s a buzzword that many might misunderstand that has seen increasing virality on social media. Let’s take a few moments to honestly evaluate what quiet quitting really means, and what it means for your business.
While we typically focus on how various technologies can be used in business applications as a way to boost a small or medium-sized organization’s capabilities, we occasionally come across a topic that is just undeniably cool (and that we can bring back around to business concerns, to boot). We recently heard about the development of a flexible new wearable that uses AI to monitor the health of the wearer that we wanted to discuss with you.
No matter how big your business is, you’ll always have technology expenses. It’s just a fact of the current workplace, and your profits will be inexorably tied to how well your IT works for you. Furthermore, the more IT costs rise, the more impact small and medium-sized businesses will feel from them. Today, we wanted to address this issue and how you can minimize the frustrations that stem from seemingly uncontrollable technology costs.
There’s no denying that the economic forecast at the moment is a bit bleak, with murmurings of a recession growing louder by the day. As this situation develops, many companies are likely seeking out opportunities to trim the fat. Despite this, however, we anticipate that artificial intelligence will actually see a bit of an uptick. Let’s go over why.
Have you ever heard of the Uncanny Valley? It’s the theory that explains why the human race tends to prefer humanoid robots, but only up to a point, after which we find them unsettling. It’s one reason why so many people found the 2019 film Cats bothersome to watch. The Uncanny Valley has also been present in film in recent years, especially when actors who have passed are recreated digitally to make an appearance, or when talent needs to look older or younger than they are.
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