Staff Writer - itbusinessdirect

Study: Retailers Ignore Over 80% of Customers’ Requests via Social Media

November 6, 2015February 11, 2016 Staff Writer

Sprout Social has found most that merchants fail to respond to consumer questions on Facebook and Twitter, a problem compounded during the holiday shopping season when the volume of requests increases. The stats from the Spout Social’s Q4 2015 Index are damning. Retailers failed to respond to more than 80 percent of consumer questions and requests on social media in the last year. And the cold shoulder from merchants was coldest when you’d think they could least afford it, during the holiday shopping season. During the fourth quarter of 2014,…

How can Financial Institutions make IoT Technology payoff?

November 4, 2015February 11, 2016 Staff Writer

Deloitte have produced a new fascinating report about the size of the market for the Internet of Things (IoT). Here’s the management summary and you can download the whole report here . Can financial services, which deals mostly with the intangible, benefit from Internet of Things technology? Absolutely—and not only from more and better data about clients’ physical assets. IoT Technology applications aim to transform finance along with every other sector. IoT may be as broadly transformational to the financial services industry as the Internet itself, and leaders should make…

San Francisco Gets Its Own Cellular Network For The ‘Internet Of Things’

October 30, 2015February 15, 2016 Staff Writer

Internet Of Things: Sigfox’s answer is a wireless network that specializes in communicating with millions of low-power devices that don’t deal with large streams of data. The Toulouse, France-based company’s network is already covering almost all of France and Spain. Now Sigfox is pushing hard into the US. At an event on Tuesday, the company is announcing it has complete coverage of San Francisco, and is planning an Internet Of Things coverage for a total of 10 US cities by the first quarter of 2016: San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los…

Huge U.K. TalkTalk telecom puts at risk 4 Million British Broadband Customers

October 23, 2015February 11, 2016 Staff Writer

British broadband provider TalkTalk has admitted that all of its 4 million customers’ names, addresses, dates of birth, email addresses, phone numbers and bank details may have stolen by hackers. The telecommunications company was attacked on Wednesday, and says all of its customers could have been affected by the breach. The police, who launched an investigation yesterday, have described the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack as ‘significant and sustained’. TalkTalk, meanwhile, says its site is now secure again, and will contact each of its customers to explain the situation…

25% internet users’ account hacked in 2015 says Kaspersky Lab Report

October 16, 2015February 11, 2016 Staff Writer

MUMBAI: If you are on the internet, chances are that your Gmail, Facebook or Twitter account was hacked in last few months. According to a latest research by Kaspersky Lab study one in four internet users had at least one of their online accounts hacked. In most cases unauthorised messages were sent out in the users’ name with a malicious link included and the loss or theft of personal data, the study said. According to another study by the lab just about 38% of the users create strong passwords and…

Dell Acquires data storage company EMC Corporation for $67 billion

October 13, 2015February 11, 2016 Staff Writer

Computer technology giant Dell and private-equity firm Silver Lake on Monday acquired data storage provider EMC for roughly $67 billion, a $33.15-per-share deal that represents the largest in technology industry history. According to the press release, the deal looks like this: Under the terms of the agreement, EMC shareholders will receive $24.05 per share in cash in addition to tracking stock linked to a portion of EMC’s economic interest in the VMware business. The deal’s $33.15 per-share cost represents a 28% premium above EMC’s closing price on Oct. 7, when the…

WTO members reach landmark $1.3 trillion IT products trade deal

September 28, 2015February 15, 2016 Staff Writer

WTO members representing major exporters of information technology products agreed on 24 July 2015 to eliminate tariffs on more than 200 such products. In a meeting at the WTO headquarters in Geneva, a tentative accord reached by 54 WTO members on 18 July was confirmed as the basis for implementation work to begin. Ministers from the participating members will now work to conclude their implementation plans in time for the WTO’s 10th Ministerial Conference which will be held in Nairobi this December. “Today’s agreement is a landmark,” said WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo.…

European Court of Justice Privacy Rule Could Ruffle American Tech Companies

September 25, 2015February 15, 2016 Staff Writer

A top European lawyer made a decision this morning that could prove a massive headache for American tech companies in Europe. Advocate General Yves Bot, an advisor to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has said the “safe harbour” agreement for transferring data between the US and EU is “invalid,” because of concerns over US spying. Bot’s opinion isn’t legally binding, and the ECJ judges will make a formal ruling in the coming months. But as The Irish Times notes, the judges follow such opinions “in most cases.” But if…

Kaymu Survey shows that youth are driving e-commerce

September 17, 2015February 15, 2016 Staff Writer

People between 25 and 34 years shop the most from the local e-commerce sites, a recent study found. The 35-44 and 18-24 age brackets take up the second and third places, according to the study by Kaymu Bangladesh. “In Bangladesh, e-commerce is growing faster and we hope this market will find a strong position in world perspective also after USA, China and India,” said Quazi Zulquarnain, Kaymu Bangladesh’s deputy managing director. This segment of trade will grow faster once all parts of the country come under 3G coverage and the…

Flurry Report Reveals U.S. Consumers Now Spend More Time In Mobile Apps Than Watching TV

September 11, 2015February 15, 2016 Staff Writer

At yesterday’s Apple event in San Francisco, CEO Tim Cook spoke about the need to bring apps to the TV’s big screen, while introducing the new Apple TV. Today, a new report from Flurry also highlights how apps have edged their way further into our lives, noting that, for the first time ever, the time spent inside mobile applications by the average U.S. consumer has now exceeded that of TV. Traditional cable TV has already been suffering in recent months, as more consumers are cutting the cord or opting never…