User engagement with podcasts has been steadily increasing, and many listeners actually prefer longer-format content, based on results of Apple's Podcast Analytics. The service, which Apple launched late last year, gives podcasters a way to track performance metrics including number of listeners, total time listened and time per device. The audience for podcasts has increased as content has become more specialized in nature, the analytics show. Listeners engage with podcasts for much longer periods than with other types of online content.
I've followed several female CEOs over the years. Most of them failed, largely because they were both unqualified for the job and their boards didn't back them up. In several cases, the board and the CEO seemed to be in conflict, or the board simply didn't do anything. Those failures have created the impression that female CEOs are a bad bet. However, I believe the real problem is that boards haven't been doing their jobs. I think women would make better CEOs than men if they were trained and supported as well.
The call came in less than an hour before the 8 a.m. shift was scheduled to start: A family emergency meant the regular caregiver for an elderly client couldn't make her shift that day, so a replacement caregiver was needed ASAP. Homewatch CareGivers of San Juan Capistrano had to quickly send a substitute from its pool of licensed, trained and security-bonded caregivers. Once confirmed to cover the shift, the substitute caregiver tapped into the Homewatch CareGivers "Care+" mobile system to access the client's medical information.
Every child who's ever played a board game understands that the act of rolling dice yields an unpredictable result. In fact, that's why children's board games use dice in the first place: to ensure a random outcome that is -- from a macro point of view, at least -- about the same likelihood each time the die is thrown. Consider for a moment what would happen if someone replaced the dice used in one of those board games with weighted dice -- say dice that were 10 percent more likely to come up "6" than any other number. Would you notice?.jpg)
There are times when looking at something narrowly can be more effective than taking a wider and more comprehensive view. Consider the experience of looking at organisms in a microscope or watching a bird through binoculars. Distractions are minimized, allowing optimal evaluation and analysis. In security, the normative way that we understand and examine the security of our organizations has a focus similar to the examples above: We examine the effectiveness of the security countermeasures put in place to achieve security objectives.
There were two interesting product launches last week. HP delivered what is pretty much a clean slate rethinking of the 2-in-1 PC with the HP Folio, and Microsoft unveiled a refresh of its Surface Line. Both firms made a big deal of the fact that their products were much better than their Apple counterparts -- but Apple has been treating PCs like a drunk uncle for some time now. Basically, I think the folks at Apple are embarrassed they still make PCs, which is both sad and ironic, since Apple basically launched the PC revolution.
The expanding world of Internet commerce likely will generate a corresponding expansion of data breaches, with the result that e-commerce businesses increasingly will become the targets of consumer class action lawsuits. Breach litigation has become more prevalent as a result of a perceptible legal trend favoring consumers. Various federal appeals courts have allowed consumers to launch class action suits even though the alleged injury from a breach was small, or even nonexistent, in terms of a current and tangible financial loss.
We've all been there: scrolling through a seemingly never-ending carousel of shows and movies available on Netflix, trying to find the one thing we might want to sit down and enjoy. Except we often end up spending more time looking for something to kick back and view than actually watching the thing itself. But fear not! You too can optimize your Netflix viewing experience, both in terms of finding something you want to watch, and amplifying how you watch it. Here's how.
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 wrongful attacks on your company's character, however. Following are some things you can do to manage your company's reputation when things go awry despite your best efforts.
I watched last week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, and I was struck by the fact that they seemed to be more about the Democrats fighting with Republicans to see which party could corrupt the Supreme Court more effectively than they were about senators doing their jobs. What bothers me most about that is, regardless of the goal, if you corrupt the highest court in the land you effectively destroy the Constitution -- and by doing so, the country. What artificial intelligence could bring to the table is a focus on fixing problems.
An increasing number of healthcare professionals have become alert to the need for well-rounded medical device security in recent years, and players throughout the industry have started putting more effort into raising the bar. Developers have become aware of the most glaring holes, and more information security researchers have been brought into the fold. The formation of advocacy groups and the simple uptick in the number of vulnerability disclosures have started to chart a course toward medical devices that are resilient against attack.
The autonomous car has thrown the automotive industry -- an industry that is notoriously slow to change -- into the forefront of technology. The autonomous car has become a technology catalyst because it requires innovation in many areas, ranging from processor and sensor technology to AI. As with all new technologies, the industry rushes to focus on consumers because they represent the billion-dollar pot of gold, but as with many other new technologies, it is the industrial applications that are likely to take hold first.
The level of effort devoted to manipulating our opinions is unprecedented. Granted, a lot of this has to do with the fact that most of the "free" online services we use aren't free at all. They are trading our ability to make measured opinions for advertisers' money, and some of these "advertisers" are foreign governments. With all of these attempts to manipulate us into doing things we otherwise don't want to do -- many of which are surprisingly successful -- there is one question we should be asking of any inflammatory story: Why?
