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Micron's 5300 and 7300 SSDs Bring Higher-Capacity & Endurance
Micron announced the 5300 series SATA SSDs and 7300 series NVMe SSDs, packing in higher-endurance 96-layer TLC NAND for enterprise workloads, a first for enterprise-targeted SATA drives, the company claims. The 7300 Pro is available in 960GB, 1.92TB, 3.84TB, and 7.68TB capacities for 2.5" (7mm) U.2 form factors, as well as in 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB, 3.84TB capacities for M.2.
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IBM Drops New Watson AI and IBM Cloud Capabilities
While IBM competes with cloud industry heavyweights Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, it's leveraging technologies such as Watson AI and its recent acquisition of Red Hat to help customers manage services and applications across multiple clouds. On the IBM Cloud front, IBM announced what it claims is the industry's "only commercially available state-of-art cryptographic technology for the cloud," which is called “Keep your own key.” This feature gives organizations the ability to retain control of their own encryption keys, along with the hardware security modules that protect them.
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So Much for a Cashless Society: Currency Is Popular Again, Especially the $100 Bill
At first glance, cash would appear to be on its way out. In America, home of the almighty dollar, almost a third of the population gets through a typical week without using a single banknote. Actually, though, physical currency is experiencing a resurgence. In the U.S., for example, currency in circulation stood at an estimated $1.76 trillion as of late September, according to the Federal Reserve. That’s about 8.2% of gross domestic product, up from just 5.6% before the 2008 financial crisis and close to the highest level in at least 36 years.
Can Linux Improve ATM Security?
Would replacing the Windows operating system in an ATM with a Linux-based one improve security? The author contends that most experts believe the answer is yes. He also states that most Linux distributions come with a complete security suite that has been hardened together for quite some time.
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Creating a Mobile Customer Service Continuum
Nearly 140 million Americans have used mobile banking in the past 30 days. For many of them, the mobile banking app has become their primary account management tool. Just 42% of these consumers, however, believe that they can resolve most service issues through their FI’s mobile app. Javelin says that FIs must support a continuum that extends from simple search and FAQs to AI-powered assistants to live chat and warm transfers to the call center will significantly lift users’ confidence in the mobile channel and reduce the urge to automatically tap the “click-to-call” button.
Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint Partner to Make Text Messaging as Smart as iMessage
Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint said that they have formed a joint project to "transform messaging." In a rare move, all four big US carriers are working together on the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative, which will use the Rich Communications Service standard to make text messages as smart as iMessage - and it will work on Android phones.
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Top Cloud Security Controls You Should Be Using
Human error is one of the top reasons for data breaches in the cloud, as administrators forget to turn on basic security controls. Whether it is Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform, this article covers some rules to keep in mind to secure your cloud workloads.
Morphisec Scrambles Memory to Thwart Advanced Attacks
The Morphisec platform is able to scramble system memory by moving the default locations for system resources that all programs use and most advanced malware is designed to exploit. The platform ships with a default plan regarding which applications and programs it will work with. These are all given the secret new locations of memory objects and .dlls when run by valid users, so in theory they are protected from any memory exploits.
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Success Through Selling the Sales Environment
Sales culture descriptions vary across FIs: from competitive and intense to merit-based and rewarding. This article asks: why not forget about establishing a sales culture and instead focus on actionable results that improve the sales environment?
Membership in World’s CUs Tops 274 Million
The international credit union community added more than 14 million members during 2018 to reach a new high of more than 274 million in 118 countries, according to World Council of Credit Unions’ newly released 2018 Statistical Report. Credit union membership worldwide has grown by 90 million since the beginning of the decade—with nearly 40 million members being added since 2016, the World Councils said.
Attention Small CUs: 6 Ways to up Your Marketing Game!
As you are planning for 2020, the author recommends 6 ways to elevate your marketing activities: 1) Review and Update Your Website; 2) Think big, crazy, impossible, never-in-a-million-years; 3) Take a Risk and Do it Differently; 4) Keep your social media alive; 5) Share your marketing plan with ALL employees; and 6) Talk to your vendors and business partners.
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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
Why Wells Fargo Plans to Pilot Its Own Cryptocurrency
Wells Fargo & Company announced plans to pilot an internal settlement service using a homegrown cryptocurrency backed by fiat money, starting with the U.S. dollar. The world's fourth-largest bank said cryptocurrency will allow near real-time money movement and cut out settlement middlemen, thus reducing costs from fees.
4 Credit Card Processing Networks Band Together for One-Click Payments Button
American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa are rolling out interoperable one-click checkouts at select e-commerce sites across the US, eliminating the laborious and repetitive key-entry of personal account numbers and information when shopping online. Based on the new EMV Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) industry standard, the networks have tested the technology in market with issuers and merchants and are preparing to introduce click to pay at select sites in the United States this month, leading up to wide availability in early 2020.
Shattering Myths and Misperceptions About Biometric Debit and Credit Cards
Biometric payment cards offer the potential to slash credit and debit card fraud. By registering and using your fingerprint with your payment card, you provide a much more secure means of authentication than is currently found on traditional credit/debit cards. The article goes on to cover several myths and misperceptions that have arisen about biometric cards.
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How IT Pros Deal with SD-WAN Security Concerns
SD-WAN technology is becoming increasingly popular because it's less expensive, more flexible and easier to deploy than MPLS, it provides centralized visibility and management, and it boosts the overall performance of WAN links. But enabling end users in branch offices to connect directly to the public internet and to cloud services raises serious security concerns, which adds another level of complexity and risk to an SD-WAN rollout. That is why when baseline SD-WAN security is not enough, organizations are adopting extra measures such as intrusion prevention, anti-virus, unified threat management and more.
Catchpoint Unveils Network Insights, an Out-of-the-Box Network Visibility Solution
Catchpoint announced Network Insights which combines new Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) monitoring with existing Domain Name System (DNS), Traceroute, Enterprise and Endpoint monitoring to help provide visibility into all network layers. The system works without deploying probes, appliances, software consoles or complex agents.
Cisco: Intent-Based Networking to Deliver on Promises SDN Couldn't Keep
Cisco's 2020 Global Networking Trends Report finds enthusiasm for intent-based networking, as networks transition from reactive to proactive, with sights set on predictive. Gartner defines intent-based networking as "a piece of networking software that helps to plan, design and implement/operate networks that can improve network availability and agility," as opposed to a market or a specific product, also calling it "lifecycle management software for networking infrastructure."
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The Metrics of Contact Center Productivity
The author maintains that cost per contact is the most important measure of efficiency in the contact center. It is an easily derived metric that tells you how much you are paying for one unit of work (one contact). Many productivity factors drive cost, and one or more metrics can measure each of these productivity factors. He goes on to explore various important metrics of contact center productivity.
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