Author Archives: Mary Branscombe

Despite some significant arrivals, 2016 also failed to deliver some long-awaited technologies. And some of what we eagerly ripped the wrapping paper off proved to be a letdown.

Here’s a rundown of the gifts IT didn’t get in 2016.

Professional-grade 3D printing

If you want to print out a stand for your phone or a model for a new product, you can easily find a 3D printer for the office that can do that — as long as you want to print them out in plastic. You can spend more and get a 3D printer that can UV cure resin and make small objects like custom-fit earplugs in about 10 minutes (I watched my ACS Custom in-ear monitor headphones get printed from digital scans of my ear canals earlier this year). Even HP’s $140,000 Multi Jet Fusion printers — promised for this year and offering multi-color printing — only just went on sale, and they still only print nylon. You can prototype a (plastic) circuit board with conductive ink circuits with the Voxel8 Developer Kit, as long as you pause the printing and add the chips by hand.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Despite some significant arrivals, 2016 also failed to deliver some long-awaited technologies. And some of what we eagerly ripped the wrapping paper off proved to be a letdown.

Here’s a rundown of the gifts IT didn’t get in 2016.

Professional-grade 3D printing

If you want to print out a stand for your phone or a model for a new product, you can easily find a 3D printer for the office that can do that — as long as you want to print them out in plastic. You can spend more and get a 3D printer that can UV cure resin and make small objects like custom-fit earplugs in about 10 minutes (I watched my ACS Custom in-ear monitor headphones get printed from digital scans of my ear canals earlier this year). Even HP’s $140,000 Multi Jet Fusion printers — promised for this year and offering multi-color printing — only just went on sale, and they still only print nylon. You can prototype a (plastic) circuit board with conductive ink circuits with the Voxel8 Developer Kit, as long as you pause the printing and add the chips by hand.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Every version of Windows — client and server — has promised improved security. But with Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, Microsoft is going beyond the usual incremental improvements and closing of loopholes and giving you the tools to reduce the dangers of phished credentials, over-privileged admins and untrustworthy binaries.

“In the past, security was always something that was part of another technology” says Jeff Woolsey, principal group program manager at Microsoft. “We needed to pull it out.”

Security and protecting identity comes up in every conversation Microsoft has with customers, he says. And the scale of attacks means that security isn’t just something for the IT team to worry about any more, adds Jeffrey Snover, lead architect for the enterprise cloud group and the Microsoft Azure stack. “When we asked customers ‘what are your IT concerns?’ there were some messages we heard consistently. There were too many stories about getting hacked and not knowing for months.”

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here