In a recent Linux Foundation blog post titled "Preventing Supply Chain Attacks like SolarWinds," the foundation's Director of Open Source Supply Chain Security, David A. Wheeler, adamantly pushed the need for software developers to embrace the LF's security recommendations. Given the magnitude of the SolarWinds hack, LinuxInsider asked Wheeler to dive deeper into how supply chain security standards might benefit from the LF's latest advice.

Desktop as a Service provider Shells offers a new component to virtual cloud computing. It brings Linux distros and Windows 10 to any computer, mobile device, and some game consoles, via any Web browser. The U.S.-based startup went online in the first quarter of last year. Since then, CEO and founder Alex Lee has been drumming up favorable responses from businesses, casual users, and Linux developers.

Oracle's continued strides in the tech space say a lot about perseverance and deep pockets. It was a darling of the 20th century tech era, rising from a startup in the database wars and becoming the sole surviving independent database company. But at some point, success leveled out its rise and it became just another big company. Then came the challenge of cloud computing.

Jeff Bezos last week announced he will be stepping down from his role of CEO Amazon. Bezos is following Microsoft's lead and putting his cloud executive Andy Jassy in charge of the company. Given that Microsoft was exceedingly successful with putting Satya Nadella in the same role, it would seem that this would be a slam-dunk success. But the issue is that Amazon is not Microsoft.

Cyberattacks are increasing in frequency, ramping up the data privacy threats they pose to government agencies and businesses alike. Governments both domestic and foreign need to step up efforts to pass legislation that bolsters technological defenses this year, warn privacy groups. Stiffer privacy laws are gradually being reviewed and signed into the U.S. market. But that process is mostly taking place at the state level.

Amazon gets a new chief executive this summer. Jeff Bezos plans to step down from that role and transition into a new job -- executive chair of Amazon. The chief of Amazon's cloud computing division, Andy Jassy, will become Amazon's new chief executive. Jassy served in that post in a temporary capacity along with another Amazon executive in recent years. The change will be effective in the third quarter, which starts in July.

Microsoft is set to step in with its Bing search engine should Google make good on its promise to cut service to Australia in response to a proposed law to make tech firms pay for news content produced by the country's media companies. Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he has spoken to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who is confident Bing could meet the needs of Australians should Google exit.

If you step back and look at what the tech sector has demonstrated to us through COVID, you can feel impressed. Early in the crisis vendors like Salesforce and Zoho began offering their products for free, or at low cost, to companies and end users suddenly faced with working at home. Oracle, Salesforce and others also developed tracking apps that could be easily deployed on the Web to help health authorities track exposure and quarantines.

The incoming presidential administration has proposed an extraordinary increase in support of federal investments in high technology. As part of the administration's plan to deal with the economic impact of COVID-19, the proposal includes $10 billion for various federal information technology programs.

An online map of surveillance cameras in New York City is in the works. The map project is part of a larger campaign called "Ban the Scan," sponsored by Amnesty International, which is partnering on the initiative with several other tech advocacy, privacy, and civil liberties groups. Data for the map will be "crowdsourced" by volunteers.

Finding the right productivity system means understanding one's situation, goals, and needs -- and then using that system consistently until it starts to have beneficial results. The E-Commerce Times spoke with productivity experts to get their perspective on apps, platforms, and techniques that help organizations and individuals become more efficient.

In the early part of 2020, the pandemic forced companies around the world to rethink their practices and determine how to accelerate the adoption of technologies that would enable remote work. After closing out on a tumultuous year, many business leaders admit where they may have gone wrong. Here are some ways they would approach a shift to remote work, if faced with the crisis all over again.

A strategic partnership with Microsoft was announced Tuesday by General Motors and Cruise aimed at speeding up the commercialization of shared self-driving vehicles. In addition, Microsoft will be joining GM, Honda and some institutional investors in adding US$2 billion to Cruise's coffers, bringing the value of the shared self-driving vehicle company to $30 billion.

If you want to smooth over irate clients and offer more efficient customer services, consider conversational bots instead of a roomful of human company reps. Researchers see consumers' comfort levels with a variety of chatbot technologies softening towards customer service, scheduling, banking, and therapy.

Oracle learned a lot from its customers and plowed its findings back into its core product just as others were getting restless and seeking alternatives. Oracle is now calling its product a "converged database" to help with differentiation by highlighting that many businesses don't often only focus on OLTP or AI, but that their businesses require a bit of everything.

Maintaining and increasing research and development spending in the COVID-19 era is critical for high technology vendors to deliver new solutions and services, continue to innovate, and position their businesses to rebound from the negative effects of the global pandemic. Analysts, financial advisors, and investors concur that, wherever possible, vendors should continue to aggressively invest in R&D.

More than 80 percent of 650 cybersecurity and IT professionals surveyed by Check Point Software Technologies in July said their traditional security solutions either do not work at all, or only provide limited functions in the cloud. This indicates that organizations' cloud migrations and deployments are racing ahead of their security teams' abilities to defend against attacks and breaches.

The idea that CRM products should be priced according to the utility they deliver sounds good, but it raises a lot of questions too. With value pricing, you might expect the cost of CRM to rise and fall as a business gets more or less use and value from its investment, but who gets to determine the value received and, while we're at it, what is the right measure of value?

Final rules governing unmanned aircraft, commonly known as drones, have been released by the Federal Aviation Administration. The move is expected to open the door for delivery of consumer packages by air. The rules establish minimum standards for safety so drones can fly over populated areas and at night under certain conditions.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is making good on a resolution to strengthen its enforcement of security deficiencies occurring in e-commerce transactions. The agency's recent action involving allegations of improper activities by teleconferencing provider Zoom Video Communications is a notable example.

The Federal Trade Commission seeks to obtain information on how many users certain social media companies have, how active the users are, what the companies know about them, how they got that information, and what steps the companies take to continue to engage users. The FTC also is gathering information on the companies' business models and how they target children and families.

Three announcements at Dreamforce tell a credible story of the future in which algorithmically driven assistance drives business -- and much more. We've long known that we can't manage what we can't measure, and measurement requires data to deliver real information. These announcements provide an insight into how that gets done.

Cybersecurity firm FireEye, which has been prominent in the fight against nation-state cyberthreats, has been itself attacked by "a highly sophisticated threat actor, one whose discipline, operational security, and techniques," company CEO Kevin Mandia announced Tuesday. This indicates the attack is likely state-sponsored, by a nation "with top-tier offensive capabilities."

Americans seem to have little interest in using contact-tracing applications used to identify people who have come into contact with a person infected with COVID-19. Adoption rates in areas using an app based on technology introduced by Google and Apple six months ago are higher, but even in the most successful of those states -- Connecticut -- only about 20 percent of residents have chosen to activate the software.

Downtime can cost enterprises that depend solely on a data center's ability to deliver IT and networking services to customers -- such as e-commerce companies -- up to $11,000 a minute. The cost to businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals who use subscription services in their work has yet to be calculated.

Mobile shopping apps have in the midst of the pandemic become central to online retail operations, and they're clearly here to stay. The E-Commerce Times spoke with m-commerce specialists to find out what's behind the rapid growth of consumers shopping on mobile devices, what mobile shoppers require from shopping apps, and how retailers can provide a better experience for their customers who shop on mobile devices.

Libra, the digital currency announced by Facebook last year, is getting a new name. Libra will now be Diem. The new name will reenforce the currency project's independence, according to a statement released by the Libra Association, which is also changing its name. From now on it will be the Diem Association.

CRM giant Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to purchase enterprise communications platform Slack. "Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world, said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO, Salesforce.

The rapid expansion in the use of cloud technologies to support remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored that the U.S. government's increasingly high rate of cloud adoption will likely be sustained for the next several years. In fact, 2020 was a "historic year" for federal cloud migration, according to Alex Rossino, senior principal research analyst at Deltek.

Although DIA can have a steep price tag and some installation complexity, most companies will opt for a dedicated connection at offices or data centers with mission-critical operations. Let's explore the benefits of a DIA circuit, as well as some potential considerations and drawbacks, to help determine if dedicated Internet is something your business should consider.