Category: News and Views

New IBM Tool Wants To Bring Shadow IT Under Control | TechCrunch

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This morning IBM introduced a new tool called IBM Cloud Security Enforcer, whose purpose as you might guess is helping IT to root out unauthorized cloud apps inside organizations.

The use of cloud apps outside of IT’s purview has sometimes called Shadow IT because the cloud enables users to provision their own tools. This tends to make IT admins a bit crazy, knowing that people are using apps that they know nothing about.

The thinking behind the new tool is that sensitive data could be leaking through these rogue cloud applications, and that the Powers that Be in the enterprise need to get a grip on this, find the ones that people like and block the ones that are the worst security offenders.

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Why This 14-Year-Old Student Was Arrested Over a Clock | Entrepreneur

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A 14-year-old student was arrested after he brought a homemade clock to school that teachers thought looked too much like a bomb, The Dallas Morning News reports.

Ahmed Mohamed likes to make electronics as a hobby, and he said that when he was showing his new project to teachers he made it clear that it was a clock.

But he may now face charges of making a hoax bomb, according to the Morning News. Ahmed has also been suspended from MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, where he missed a student-council meeting because of his arrest.

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The 10 U.S. Cities With The Biggest Gap Between Rich And Poor | Co.Exist

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In San Francisco, the richest 5% of households rake in an average of $423,000 a year, while the poorest 20% make around $24,000. The income gap between rich and poor is even worse in Atlanta, where the wealthiest people make nearly 20 times more.

As the gap between rich and poor grows in the U.S., it’s worst in big cities. In a Brookings Institution ranking of the most unequal cities in the country, Atlanta and San Francisco topped the list, but others were close behind.

Big cities have more inequality for two reasons, says Alan Berube, deputy director and senior fellow of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings. For one, they contain relatively more subsidized housing and services for the poor. On the other end of the spectrum, most cities are also home to the highest-value jobs in their regions, in sectors like finance, professional services, education, and technology.

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The Pickup Truck of Electric Bikes May Be Better Than a Car | WIRED

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NEW TO SAN Francisco, I discovered quickly that having a car is terrible, but not as terrible as relying on the city’s horrific public transportation or spending the few dollars I have left after rent on surge-priced Ubers.

For me, and for an increasing number of people in cities all over the world, the answer is a bicycle. 60 percent more people commute to work on a bike now than a decade ago, and cycling infrastructure has grown as cities have become too congested to handle more cars. Bikes rule, cars drool.

For a couple of weeks this summer, I sat in the seat of a bike called the Xtracycle Edgerunner 10e. This is no ordinary bike. This $5,750 beast is a longtail, one in a burgeoning breed of giant, high-tech cargo bikes. The 10e is capable of carrying up to 400 pounds’ worth of people, groceries, and whatever else you can think to throw in its many compartments. It comes with an electric motor, too, which makes it far easier to carry that huge load. This is the Ford F150 of bicycles, sold on its towing capacity—or maybe the Subaru Outback, the family-friendly car you can count on.

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Illinois refuses to make lottery payments, thus hitting the jackpot for outrage | Mashable

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There is a fight brewing to save the last glimmer of the American dream.

No, we’re not talking about the dream of owning a home, a feat that is less common in the U.S. today than any time since 1967. Nor are we talking about the idea of sending your children to college so they can have a better life, a reality threatened by the fast rise in student loan defaults. And of course we’re not talking about the ability to retire because, well, let’s be honest: that dream is shot to hell.

The fight is to preserve what could more accurately be called the insurance policy for the American dream: winning the lottery.

When all else fails, as it too often does, you have the option to spend money you do not really have on lottery tickets you should not really buy in the hopes that it just might (but probably won’t) pay for the dream you hoped hard work and a smooth functioning economy would provide. (Even though the lotto often ends up funding a nightmare of robberies, divorce and general burnout from the sudden wealth.)

In recent weeks, however, it has come to light that one state is reneging on this all-important obligation. The Illinois Lottery has stopped paying out prizes of $25,000 or more to winners as lawmakers have yet to pass a budget for the state which is about $5 billion in the red.

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Congress May Give IRS Authority To Regulate Tax Preparers | Forbes

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Last year, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen announced the Annual Filing Season Program, a voluntary and temporary program intended to fill the holes left after the IRS lost the right to regulate tax preparers following Loving v. Commissioner. At the time, Commissioner Koskinen called the program “not the ideal solution” and was hopeful that Congress would enact a proposal that would give the IRS the authority for mandatory oversight of return preparers.

He wasn’t alone. Nina E. Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate, has long been a proponent of tax preparer regulation: she has been urging Congress to move forward on such a program since 2002. Post-Loving, Olson has pushed Congress to pass legislation to authorize the IRS to reinstate the RTRP program.

Now, more than a year – and a few more lawsuits – after Loving, it appears that both Commissioner Koskinen and Taxpayer Advocate Olson may get their wishes.

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California drops plan for 50% cut in petroleum use | BBC News

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California has dropped plans to halve petroleum use in vehicles by 2030, after intense oil industry lobbying.

Governor Jerry Brown and other senior lawmakers had included the proposal in a climate change bill, but were forced to retreat amid growing opposition.

State senate leader Kevin de Leon, who supported the cut, accused oil firms of deploying “scare tactics”.

The leaders have vowed to push ahead with other reforms, including boosting renewable electricity use.

“I’d say oil has won the skirmish, but they’ve lost the bigger battle,” Mr Brown said.

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