New research has claimed the vast majority (92%) of ICT-related jobs will undergo moderate to high transformations over the next few years due to the growth of AI.
The report from the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium, led by Cisco and counting the likes of SAP, Microsoft and IBM among its members, notes software development and business management positions, which are expected to have 61% and 48% evolution rates respectively, could be especially affected by the changes.
It added foundational skills are needed in response to the rise of new technologies, such as AI literacy, prompt engineering, and data analytics, and has suggested a rise in relevance for skills such as AI ethics, LLM architecture, and agile methodologies will push more traditional roles to the side.
Employer commitments
In response to the rapidly changing digital landscape, many companies have committed to training workers in the basics of ICT skills. Lisa Gevelber, Founder of Grow with Google confirms,
‘The benefits of AI must be accessible to every worker. We’re proud to support the Consortium’s new research, which will advance our shared vision to equip all workers with the AI skills they need to succeed in the jobs of today and tomorrow.’
Cisco itself has pledged to train 25 million people with cybersecurity and digital skills by 2032. Both Intel and IBM have committed to helping 30 million people with AI skills and digital skills respectively by 2030.
Google has also announced over $130 million in funding to support AI training and skills for workers across the US, Europe, Africa, Latin America and APAC.
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“AI represents a never-before-seen opportunity for technology to benefit humankind in every way, and we have to act intentionally to make sure populations don’t get left behind,” said Francine Katsoudas, Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer, Cisco, and founding member of the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium. “By investing in a long-term roadmap for an inclusive workforce, we can help everyone participate and thrive in the era of AI.”
August might not be a traditionally scary month. It may be the middle of summer for those in the Northern Hemisphere, but if you’re after some macabre offerings, there’s some great titles hitting the best streaming services.
Look, you can admit it, sometimes you just want to block out all the sunlight, cosy up, and watch one of the best horror movies that gets under your skin. If an evening of horror goodness is on the cards, look no further, because we’ve got a line-up of seven great movies that are arriving throughout August.
Whether you want creepy dolls, even creepier smiles or Mia Goth’s delightfully unhinged acting, it’s all here. Read on to see which new movies in the horror genre are hitting the small screen this month.
Child’s Play 2 (1990)
(Image credit: Universal Pictures)
When: August 1 Where to stream it: Netflix (US), Tubi (UK)
Set two-years after Chucky’s death, the filmmakers of this classic horror found a clever way to resurrect him for a sequel. Obviously, his manufacturers weren’t too thrilled by the fact their doll turned out to be a psychopath, and they attempt to repair their reputation by reassembling the doll to prove to investors that he’s harmless. Come to think of it, maybe that was a stupid idea.
It’s a worthy sequel and those hungry for more Chucky-flavored chaos are in for a real treat. The fun doesn’t stop here, of course, as there’s six more movies in the Child’s Play franchise. Not sure where to start? Here’s our ranking of every Chucky movie rated from best to worst.
Suitable Flesh (2023)
(Image credit: Shudder)
When: August 3 Where to stream it: Shudder (US, UK, AU)
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Anything based around H. P. Lovecraft immediately gets my attention, and Suitable Flesh seems like one to watch. It’s also got horror icon Barbara Crampton in it, so that already ticks two boxes when it comes to choosing a movie to watch.
In Suitable Flesh, a psychiatrist becomes obsessed with one of her young patients, who she later discovers is linked to an ancient curse. It takes its inspiration from Lovecraft’s The Thing on the Doorstep, and it looks like a bloody good time. Pun absolutely intended.
Pearl (2022)
(Image credit: A24)
When: August 1 Where to stream it: Netflix (US, AU), NOW TV (UK)
Please, she’s a star! That statement is certainly true for lead actress Mia Goth, who shines in the leading role. She’s concluding Ty West’s X trilogy too with her appearance in MaXXXine,which was one of our highly anticipated A24 movies for 2024.
Pearl’s arrival on Netflix has come at a great time if you want to refresh yourself on this iconic movie trilogy. The second movie follows Pearl, who is trapped on a rural farm where she longs for stardom. Her dreams of escaping farm life soon turns into a dangerous and deadly obsession.
Hell Hole (2024)
(Image credit: Shudder)
When: August 23 Where to stream it: Shudder (US, AUS, UK)
In this new movie, an American-led fracking crew uncovers a dormant parasitic monster entombed deep in the frozen rock. Now awakened, it tears through the mining facility in search of the perfect host. This is bad news considering they’re all very worthy candidates. Well, rather them than me.
This is a Shudder Original and is making its debut on the streamer across multiple territories, so if you’ve got a subscription to the horror service definitely get this one added to your watchlist as it has the potential to be one of the best Shudder movies yet.
Immaculate sees Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney, who leads the cast as a devout nun who comes to an illustrious convent after surviving a near-death experience. She believes God saved her for a purpose, and chooses a life of celibacy and devotion to her faith.
It’s curious, then, when she learns she’s pregnant despite not having a sexual partner, and this is where things get really weird. She is given special privileges and is hailed as a miracle, but there’s a real creeping sense of dread throughout as the truth is slowly revealed. This is one of my favourite horrors of 2024, so don’t miss it!
Smile (2022)
(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)
When: August 15 Where to stream it: Paramount Plus (US, UK, AUS), Prime Video (US), Netflix (UK, AU)
Oh great, now smiling is terrifying. Of all things! Based on the short film Laura Hasn’t Slept, the feature-length adaptation by director Parker Finn follows a therapist called Rose whose patient tells her she’s being terrorized by an invisible entity that appears as various smiling people and has foretold her death.
This sets off a terrifying chain of events as Rose sets out to find out what’s going on here. It’s a pretty wild film which is no bad thing in my opinion. If you’re after dread, jump scares, and horrible visuals, it’s all here. There’s also a sequel, Smile 2, coming out later this year.
In The Mouth of Madness (1994)
(Image credit: New Line Cinema)
When: August 1 Where to stream it: Shudder (US)
We’re ending this month’s round-up with a John Carpenter movie. Much like Suitable Flesh, this one also pays tribute to H. P. Lovecraft so it seems August is full of Lovecraftian goodness, which is certainly not something to complain about.
In this movie, a horror novelist goes missing, so insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) scrutinizes the claim made by his publisher, Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston), and endeavors to retrieve a yet-to-be-released manuscript and find out where the writer has gone. Which proves to be a mistake, surprise surprise.
Engineering teams hate the ‘same old song’ situation: being woken up at 3am to fix a toilsome, comparatively minor task, such as remedying a disk space issue. Dissatisfaction rises when skilled professionals are asked to do basic activities that — in a more digitally mature operational environment — could be managed preventatively with automation.
A recent survey into the cost of downtime revealed that more than 70% of IT leaders report that remediation, mobilizing responders, collaboration between teams, and internal communications with stakeholders are yet to be fully automated. Other examples of relatively thankless, yet vital, activities that could be automated include managing manual releases, handling recurrent password resets, dealing with repeated identical alerts or creating users on systems. Any task that an engineer can do easily but is low value and uncreative can be considered toil.
Teams required to do this are at greater risk of burnout. That’s bad for engineer experience and, ultimately, employee churn, corporate productivity and profitability. Individual agency is important, and skilled engineering talent should be able to use all their cognitive ability for a fulfilling working experience.
A more operationally mature organization can ensure that engineering talent works with automation and improves their operational maturity: preventative and proactive, enjoyable and sustainable. This is particularly important for organizations seeking to incorporate AI into their stack. AIOps creates more need for faster responses, and to ensure data integrity, security and compliance at pace. So, without automation, it’s hard to see how teams can ensure the fast throughput and operational flow that enable a platform for stable, reliable AI outputs, let alone the flexibility to innovate as well.
Heath Newburn
Global Field CTO at PagerDuty.
Automation creates stability for AI
Leaders are increasingly keen on AI as a human-supporting business enabler, but engineers see great value from automation first as a basis for ensuring the business delivers on its operational promises.
For the engineer, automation removes toil, taking the most common, burdensome and low-value tasks out of their remit. It can reduce the need for human oversight over the routine. Automation, often involving AI, becomes an assistant, helping engineers to solve bigger, urgent or strategic problems quicker.
Automation assistance, often itself using machine learning or AI within the codebase, can be used to create rules and runbooks ensuring technology fails gracefully, minimizing the number, extent and duration of incidents. Common, repeatable incidents should be analyzed and automated away, creating a preventive mindset where the engineering team can learn from incidents while also reducing the cognitive load from attending to ‘firefighting’.
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Without digital operational maturity safeguarded by automation, iterating AI adoption is unlikely to be a smooth process. Consider that AI solutions seldom meet user requirements in their first form. Being able to react quickly, upgrade, connect and scale is key. Doing this at pace and safeguarding budget means managing the software engineering elements quickly and efficiently. Inevitably, it takes automation to manage an always-on, always-connected and always-learning environment.
Automation is foundational to resilient operations that can take managed risks as they innovate services, based on a stable environment. Neither any future AI or existing staff can have the ability to do smarter things if they don’t have such a mature and reliable IT infrastructure to launch from to guarantee levels of service to internal and external customers.
Managing the most critical asset: Talent
Talent comes to software engineering to build things and create, not to grind and manage break-fix work. Using AI and automation to free people to do the things that keep them engaged, excited, and productive is great for them and the business.
Many innovative and successful organizations share their best practices for engineering success. They do this because it’s an acknowledged truism that engineering and tech talent generally operates differently from other business roles. General advice and best practices on people management only goes so far. Great companies differentiate themselves on their engineering success. If talent is stuck using their expensive, professional skills on toil, there will be a point at which dissatisfaction and burnout arise, and there may not be spare talent to step in should key personnel leave.
Day-to-day experiences for development and operations teams are critical, but managers should consider the longer-term career planning for their folks as well. From where they are now, what skills, training, challenges do they need over the next 2-3 years to solidify their expertise and make them feel valued? Burnout is a foreseeable outgrowth of poor digital maturity and toil. Planning to avoid it from the beginning is key to employee and knowledge retention and therefore on business resilience.
Misaligned business and technology stakeholders are a familiar refrain in almost any organization, particularly larger enterprises. While the analytical and problem-solving mindset of tech talent should solve some of the common causes this stems from, getting the business involved as true partners is often the critical missing piece. Exceptional service delivery has to focus on the lens of the business needs with exceptional communication to all stakeholders (including customers), not simply the technical delivery.
As teams tackle this unified view of service ownership and delivery, solutions such as sharing a common planning framework, laddered goals, a shared vocabulary and cross-functional teams using agile methodologies all offer solutions to universal problems.
When moving from the general to the particular, always keep the employee experience in mind. A major, recurring question should be `how are we empowering people to be the most effective?` How are you going to measure it, and what plans are you going to put in place to build continual improvements? The answer would be a properly planned career with space for them to focus on building, creating, and playing to their strengths. This means they get to play a different song and stay empowered, engaged and productive.
Create a new playlist to keep on dancing
Toil, organizational digital immaturity, and a lack of career direction are killers of engagement for engineering talent. What’s more, these factors also fail to set up the organization to achieve their AI goals. We need a mindset shift that spending too much time in break fix and keeping the lights on isn’t acceptable. Those organizations that focus on leveraging automation to remove toil, reduce risk, and drive velocity will find that they will deliver more from their AI investments by playing to the strengths of their engineering team – accelerating delivery, assisting in creativity, and building solutions their customers need.
This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro
Samsung‘s latest foldable phones officially went on sale only a few days ago, and while I was thoroughly impressed by everything I’ve seen about the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 in the lead up to their launch, if I’m honest, foldable phones have alway seemed like a bit of a gimmick to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the appeal of a big screen, and the additional capabilities that enables versus a regular-sized phone. And I’ll never get tired of watching a smartphone unfold.
But I’m an enthusiastic flag bearer in the Phones Are Too Big army, so a phone that folds out to be 7.6-inches seemed like it would be my worst nightmare. I mean, I loved my iPhone 12 mini and I’ve been calling for that smaller form factor to be brought back. Sure, it’s nice to have a bigger display on hand, but if size is really that important, surely pulling a tablet out of your bag isn’t that much more hassle, is it?
Tablets typically come with screens that are at least 10-inches too, and isn’t bigger better? They’re cheaper too – you could pair almost any one of our regular-sized best phones recommendations with one of the best tablets for less than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6’s entry price of $1,899.99 / £1,799 / AU$2,749.
Of course, all of these were the thoughts of a man before he got his hands on a Galaxy Z Fold 6. Now that I’ve had my hands on it, I’m not sure I can go back to a boring, stiff, regular-sized smartphone.
Phone-use has never been more productive
Before we get into the (more) fun stuff, I want to talk about how the Fold 6 upgraded my daily productivity. Not just in regards to work, but just generally throughout the day. I said before that I didn’t see the benefit of a foldable phone over just a phone and tablet combo. That opinion was blown away almost instantly.
It was the phones multitasking ability that really took things to the next level and had me working like Bradley Cooper in Limitless, but it turns out the ability to have a huge screen in the blink of an eye can make a big difference on its own.
It turns out, not having to pull the tablet or laptop out of your bag for a larger screen is worth the price of admission. From watching YouTube or scrolling through socials on the Fold 6’s cover screen, to unfolding it fully to read books in the Kindle app or catch up on the news in the gloriously roomy web browser, that extra space is a luxury I’m going to struggle to go without.
When you add work-related matters into the fold (pun intended), there’s an even bigger impact on productivity. Reading is a breeze on the Fold 6, whether it’s emails, Slack messages or a book, you won’t find a better experience without the e-ink of one of our best ereaders, but it’s also a breeze to type on. Whether holding it in two hands or typing away with it on a desk, I had no issue whipping up a thousand words with it. Providing the ease of use of a phone and the functionality of a tiny laptop, it makes working on the go a piece of cake.
It’s the multi-tasking ability of the Fold 6 that makes it a productivity machine, though. With up to four apps displayed on screen at one time, you can be in a meeting, type up notes, continue watching YouTube and have Slack open all at the same time. Or, if you’re feeling naughty, four different forms of entertainment.
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That’s just the beginning of how the Fold 6 improved my work flow.
(Image credit: Future)
I’m against AI, but when it helps me like this…
I’m generally anti-AI. It’s scary, confusing and will probably take my job one day. But I have to admit, when it works like it does in the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, it’s hard to be too mad.
The AI functionality is funny, because it improves productivity by letting you do less work, rather than helping you do work easier. Samsung Internet’s AI summaries, rather than sucking up hours of my day gathering information and reading articles to find a few noteworthy points, I could acquire the required knowledge in seconds, and get on with the important work.
When I was just looking for quick info, or a round-up of major ideas and key points, the time saved by the AI-powered summary is unbelievable. Summarizing thousands of words into a few key dot points is a real life-saver if you’re just looking for some general info, are going through various articles on the same subject, or just want to catch up on the latest news.
It doesn’t stop there though. With my screen split in two, I typed up notes while researching… and was left with my usual muddled mess that I have to spend an annoying amount of time formatting and making neat. Galaxy AI took care of that cleanup for me, automatically formatting my notes, as well as correcting any spelling mistakes. It can translate your notes in seconds too.
Fun and games
Those are the features that can upgrade your work, but I found there was plenty of fun to be had with the Z Fold 6 too. We’ll get into the embarrassing amount of time I spent adding AI cats into photos, but the first thing I did with the Z Fold 6 was download some of my favorite games and play them on the big screen, and I have no regrets.
A big vibrant display is the best place for games like Marvel Snap or Hearthstone, and being able to unfold my phone, play a game in the best format possible and then just close it up and return to using the Fold 6 like a regular phone was a wonderful feeling.
OK, now back to those dang AI cats. While I’m sure Samsung’s Galaxy AI photo generation and editing tools will be incredibly helpful for some jobs, using them was a case of pure enjoyment for me, and it didn’t get old. Whether I was adding things into photos or turning my terrible sketches into the stuff of nightmares, I was thoroughly impressed by how good it was at picking up what I was attempting to draw. (Well, except for that one time it thought my cat was a miniature rhino.)
One disappointing thing that I should mention is that videos like YouTube or Aussie streaming platform Kayo Sports don’t go full-screen like I had hoped. The result is that while the Fold 6’s main display does make videos slightly larger than viewing them on the cover display, it’s not a huge difference – though it is more comfortable to hold when unfolded. You can optionally zoom in, but the sides of most videos will get cut off, which is decidedly sub-optimal.
(Image credit: TechRadar / Max Delaney)
Final thoughts
Before my time with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, I never dreamed of using my phone to scroll through Reddit while watching baseball highlights, but I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed being able to do so. I found myself unfolding the Fold 6 basically any time I was sitting down and using it, or standing stationary on the bus and reading.
As for the cover display and its narrower and taller form factor, I had no major issues. And while the Fold 6 is undoubtedly a thick device – basically one-and-a-half phones stacked on top of each other – and I didn’t love sliding it in and out of my pocket, it is both relatively sleek and comfortable to hold for its size.
Now, while I personally won’t be shelling out the wad of cash to pick up a Galaxy Z Fold 6 (my membership in the Phones Are Too Big army is far too precious), I’m no longer under any cloud as to why it could be a worthwhile purchase for someone else. And as for the old tablet + phone versus a foldable debate, I’ll happily admit that I’m now in the foldable camp.
AI assistants are rapidly being deployed across financial services institutions, including banks, asset managers and the thousands of fintechs that handle compliance. Altogether this is one of the most transformative changes to how people work that we’ve seen in decades. As we move from proof of concepts to enterprise-wide rollouts, it’s increasingly important that companies ensure these tools add value and don’t create additional problems.
The importance of embedded teams
This is something we understand at Synechron. I’m currently working with teams helping thousands of people across financial services to set up and work alongside AI assistants. And this is a huge adjustment – you can’t expect people to adapt to this level of change overnight. We’ve found that organization-wide training – led by a team of AI experts embedded with business teams – is critical to ensuring that people understand exactly what these tools can and cannot do to add value and remain safe. This is also why so many organizations are using trusted third-party providers, as this expertise just doesn’t exist in-house.
Ryan Cox
Senior Director & Co-Head of Artificial Intelligence, at Synechron.
Companies need to establish what information is reliable
A comprehensive security framework must go beyond the basic disclaimers at the bottom of AI assistant searches. Companies need to establish what information is reliable. This means we have to educate employees on the differences between secure internal datasets and open internet sources. Also, they need to know about fact-checking to mitigate the risks of model hallucination and be aware of ethical and regulatory issues. For financial firms, it’s also vital that they work inside controlled environments, especially when dealing with private or sensitive data.
From a security and privacy point of view, there are valid concerns about using generative AI tools at work. As with the adoption of cloud services, we must ensure data remains secure in transit and at rest. Companies must know precisely where their data is going – is it a secured cloud environment or an open public system like ChatGPT? The lack of transparency around how data gets ingested, processed and used by these AI ‘black box’ models is a big concern for some organizations.
Certain tools simply aren’t suited to enterprise use cases that involve sensitive information. ChatGPT is designed for public consumption and may not prioritize the same security and privacy guardrails as an enterprise-grade system. Meanwhile, offerings like GitHub Copilot generate code directly in the IDE, based on user prompts, which could inadvertently introduce vulnerabilities if that code runs without review.
Looking ahead, the integration of AI into operating systems and productivity tools will likely exacerbate these challenges. Microsoft’s new feature, Recall, captures screenshots of everything you do and creates a searchable timeline, raising concerns about surveillance overreach and data misuse by malicious actors. Compliance departments must compare – and then align – these technology features with regulatory requirements around reporting and data collection.
Secure, isolated environments
As AI capabilities expand and become more autonomous, we risk ceding critical decisions that impact user privacy and rights to these systems. The good news is that established cloud providers like Azure, AWS, and GCP offer secure, isolated environments in which to deploy AI models integrated with enterprise authentication safely. Companies can also choose to run large language models (LLMs) on-premises, behind their firewalls, and can use open source models to clearly understand the data used in training the model.
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Transparency builds trust
Ultimately, AI model transparency is crucial for building trust and adoption. Users deserve clear information on how their data gets handled and processed and opt-in/opt-out choices. Privacy needs to be a core design principle from day one, not an afterthought. Robust AI governance with rigorous model validation is also critical for ensuring these systems remain secure and effective as the technology rapidly evolves.
Finally, organizations need to have performance check-ins – just as they would with any human employee. If your AI assistant is seen as another colleague, it needs to be clear that they’re adding value in line with (or exceeding) their training and ongoing operational costs. It’s easy to forget that simply “integrating AI” across a company is not, in itself, actually valuable.
We believe that these are tools are vital. They will be a part of almost everyone’s lives in the near future. What’s important is that companies don’t think they can simply enable access to the tools and then walk away; that this is something that can be announced to shareholders and then be fully operational within a quarter. Education and training will be an ongoing process, and getting security, privacy, and compliance measures right is key in order that we can take full advantage of these capabilities in a way that instills confidence and guarantees safety.
This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro
Crippling cyberattacks against hospitals and healthcare institutions are on the rise. This year, there’s been a sharp uptake in cybergangs stealing confidential patient data by launching ransomware attacks. These ruthless attacks can take medical systems offline for weeks, resulting in thousands of cancelled appointments, surgeries and causing harm to patients. Doctors and nurses are also plunged into crises as they are suddenly locked out of online patient records, resorting to filing paperwork manually. Phone systems go down, while IT staff work tirelessly to bring services safely back online. The recovery can be long-lasting and brutal.
It doesn’t take long to see how ransomware can have a dangerous impact on the healthcare sector. The industry is being increasingly targeted because of the valuable data it holds. Cybercriminal gangs such as Qilin, the Russian-speaking cybergang behind the recent Synnovis attack, stole data and following unsuccessful negotiations, listed it on the dark web. The gang demanded upward of $50 million from Synnovis as a threat to not release the data. But even if a cyber gang is unsuccessful in receiving a ransom, a successful attack further grows their notoriety.
Richard Meeus
Security Technology and Strategy Director for Akamai’s EMEA region.
Calculating the human cost
With criminals operating internationally, cybercrime is ultimately a business. The World Economic Forum has revealed that the cost of cybercrime could reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Yet, when bad actors specifically target healthcare institutions – it is patients who pay the price.
Hospitals and other healthcare organizations are very complex as they constantly store and process significant volumes of personal data. This personal data is fed into dozens of software models hosted by third-party companies, providing everything from electronic health records to staff shift schedules. Cyberattacks against third-party service providers that take medical services offline can impact a hospital’s internal systems and networks and those belonging to these third-party suppliers.
In the hours and days immediately following a ransomware attack, it’s common for companies who have software connected to the targeted organization to pull the plug on their services as they determine what areas have been affected. While a cyberattack against a business may disrupt services like payments and monitoring stock inventories, cyberattacks against the healthcare industry can deny patients lifesaving care and slash their trust in healthcare services.
Couple this with the healthcare industry seeing a significantly larger increase (162%) in cyberattacks than any other industry – the second highest rise came in media leisure and entertainment (116%) – and it’s clear that the human cost of cyberattacks is skyrocketing in within healthcare organizations.
Blindspots in healthcare
Throughout the healthcare sector, organizations are reporting that budget constraints are the biggest barrier to cyber resilience. In the current climate, too many institutions are typically only able to act against cyberattacks on a reactive basis. But the truth is that reactive approaches hand the initiative to malicious actors and place healthcare establishments on the back foot.
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Old healthcare IT systems also provide enticing entry points for cybercriminals. For example, organizations frequently rely on out-of-support operating systems such as Windows 7. In some cases, legacy systems can account for between 30 and 50 per cent of all IT services, leaving them open to vulnerabilities. Some of these systems may have been designed more than 20 years ago and simply haven’t stayed up to date with technological advancements due to the cost of maintenance or the replacement of software that was originally designed for a now outdated operating system.
An overnight overhaul to the latest operating system isn’t realistic but there are immediate steps that organizations can take to manage their risk. One such example is network segmentation. This involves splitting the network into isolated sections, it allows an organization to ringfence the mission-critical aspects of their network and ensure that even in a worst-case scenario, a minimum safe operational level is maintained.
Segmentation is vital to healthcare because it buys institutions the most precious resource of all; time. Segmented networks slow bad actors down. Essentially, it’s the difference between giving hackers free rein or ensuring they are stopped and blocked at every juncture. While the most desirable outcome is to prevent cybercriminals from gaining entry altogether, it’s equally important to ensure that in instances of a successful attack, they are not given the red-carpet treatment to all corners of a network. The average time it takes to completely halt a ransomware attack in a well-segmented network is four times quicker than in a network that is not segmented. In healthcare, the speed of a successful response can quite literally be a matter of life and death.
Preparing for the future
IT and security teams are facing an uphill battle, it’s never been easier for amateur cybercriminals to launch attacks and cause disruption. And that’s largely why we’re seeing a rise in attacks and hacktivism both in Europe and on a global scale.
The recent Synnovis attack underscores the importance of robust cybersecurity measures to prevent attacks in the first place, as relying on post-attack solutions is neither feasible nor desirable. It’s imperative that healthcare institutions are empowered to tighten up their defenses by addressing key vulnerabilities.
Alongside securing infrastructure, healthcare institutions must provide the tools for employees to work safely and securely. Organizations have a duty of care to protect their employees and this extends to ensuring they can spot phishing attempts and cyber attacks in their early stages and block the user’s request if they do click on a malicious link. Training and refresher sessions must happen all year round. Attackers rely on and exploit complacency at the entry point.
Another clear step that every healthcare establishment can take is to implement the “assumed breach” approach. Unravelling attacks are intensely stressful situations but panic mustn’t set in. Operating under the assumed breach mentality helps to manage this. It’s an approach that ensures constant pragmatism and is a core tenet of Zero Trust – the network security strategy based on the philosophy that access is never granted unless it is explicitly deemed necessary. In the healthcare setting, organizations must operate under the ‘never trust, always verify’ strategy. This limits the lateral movement of a cybercriminal once they force access and also makes it easier to ensure compliance with micro perimeters around sensitive data.
As healthcare institutions are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs of cybergangs, cybersecurity must be treated as an operational necessity.
This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro
Searching for the best broadband deals available at the moment, but haven’t quite found one that’s either fast enough or rewarding enough? Well, your search might be over.
This Full Fibre package runs on the dependable Openreach network. As the name suggests, it provides average download speeds of 300Mbps. This means that it should be more than fast enough for the requirements of most households. As part of this, BT claims that with this deal you’ll be able to ‘stream and download as much as you like’. In addition to this, you also get unlimited data, a ‘Stay Fast Guarantee’ of 150Mbps and 49Mbps upload speeds.
However, before you click on our link and sign up for the package, there are a couple of things you’ll need to consider. For example, in order to be eligible, you’ll need to be able to access the Full Fibre Openreach network at your property. On top of this, BT also highlights that there are ‘monthly price increases [of] £3 for broadband plans on 31 March each year’.
One reason why BT is so popular is the range of packages it offers. The superfast 300Mbps deal we’ve highlighted here actually sits in the middle of its offering. As well as offering an ADSL option (10Mbps), a couple of basic fibre deals (30-60Mbps) and entry level Full Fibre packages that offer speeds of around 80Mbps, the company also offers plans that go all the way to 900Mbps.
Added to this, BT is considered to be a market leader when it comes to broadband and TV bundles. This is particularly the case now the company has partnered with EE and provides TV packages through EE TV. Due to this, the company sits alongside the likes of Sky and Virgin Media in terms of the range of packages you can receive.
On top of this, BT also provides some of the highest levels of customer service in the industry and customers can get support from a variety of channels, including over the phone, via email, social media, apps and online accounts. Similarly, according to the latest Ofcom data, the company scores better than average in terms of complaints handling.
That said, although there are a lot of reasons to love BT, the company isn’t perfect. For example, BT is very much viewed as a ‘premium provider’ and, when its packages aren’t on offer, they can be expensive.
Unsure whether BT is the right provider for you? Or would you like to see how the company’s packages compare with others that are available at your address? Use our widget below and we’ll show you all of the very best packages you can get in your location today.
When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wanted to price his new Apple-1 computer, he chose a price roughly three times what it cost to build it: $666.66. The price made his cofounder and chief system designer Steve Wozniak laugh because of its proximity to a joke line he used to dial, and it ultimately caused the pair some grief because of its digit relationship to, well, the sign of the beast.
Almost 50 years later, that price is a fraction of what you might pay for Polaroid pictures of the original Apple-1 Computer prototype. A collection of three photos of the board, the board and its caseless computer, and a monitor running Apple’s own brand of BASIC are on auction at RRAction House and currently sit at a bid of $2,148. The auction is open until August 22, so that price might differ by the time you visit and maybe bid.
Jobs used these images as part of his pitch deck, which he presented to early client Paul Terrell of the Byte Shop. By today’s standards, the Apple-1 looked like, at best, a home-brewed system. Still, according to Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography, Jobs’ pitch and those images eventually convinced Terrell to sign up for an order of 50 pre-assembled Apple-1 systems.
(Image credit: RR Auction)
For that $666.66, Terrell was getting, by 1976 standards, a revolutionary 8K (expandable to 65K RAM) system that included a built-in video terminal and keyboard interface (instead of a TeleType system), that hooked up directly to a monitor or TV. There was even 1K of dedicated video memory. And then, of course, there was Apple BASIC. While it doesn’t sound like much, the system sold well enough to lay the groundwork for the better-known and far more widely sold Apple II computer (I used an Apple IIe for a time and loved it).
The auction is a walk back through some of the iconic history of Apple and Steve Jobs. Along with the Polaroids, it includes a leather bomber jacket Steve Jobs wore in 1983 when photographed giving the finger to an IBM logo. IBM was, of course, a chief Apple rival in the early days of the personal computer revolution.
Other items include checks written by Jobs and even a restored and fully functional Apple-1 computer. What you can do with that system (logged as No. 104 in the Apple Computer Registry) is a fair question. It might be ready for some simple math and low-key BASIC programming, but that’s about it. Still, what a museum piece.
As for those photos, since they were likely taken by Jobs himself, they’re much more than a record of early personal computer efforts, they speak to how Jobs viewed their creation and how the eventual master of product marketing might’ve planned to market this magical piece of hardware. That’s what could make it worth the cost of one of the best MacBooks.
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Microsoft Excel is an indispensable spreadsheet tool used across many professions. Financial modelling, budgeting, data analysis and project management are just a few tasks where Excel often plays a critical role.
As businesses increasingly rely on data-driven decisions, mastering Excel has become a critical skill for career advancement. Key skills that are highly sought after include data manipulation using formulas and functions, data visualisation with charts and Pivot Tables and the ability to automate tasks using VBA.
Whether you’re a beginner aiming to understand the basics or a professional looking to refine your expertise, the right Excel course can be a game-changer for your career trajectory. TechRepublic takes a look at the top six Excel courses available in 2024 for users with different experiences and goals.
Best Excel courses: Comparison table
Work Smarter with Microsoft Excel — Coursera
“Work Smarter with Microsoft Excel” teaches complete beginners the basics of Excel. Image: Coursera/Screenshot by TechRepublic
This short course from Microsoft is great for those who have never interacted with Excel before. It starts with the very basics, explaining what Excel is used for and some simple formulas before moving step-by-step into charts, Pivot Tables and customising workbooks. “Work Smarter with Microsoft Excel” gives learners the confidence to move onto intermediate courses to explore Excel features in more detail. Short exercises are spread throughout the course content — delivered through videos and readings — and it ends with an hour-long project to consolidate the knowledge gained in previous modules.
Price
$49/£38 per month after seven-day free trial.
Duration
20 hours.
Pros
Cons
Great for giving confidence to complete beginners.
Could be too basic for some learners.
Free if completed within a week.
Course fee would seem expensive if not completed within a month.
Pre-requisites
None.
Excel Skills for Business Specialization — Coursera
“Excel Skills for Business” was created by Macquarie University academics. Image: Coursera/Screenshot by TechRepublic
The three-month long Excel specialisation created by Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, provides a more in-depth overview of using the spreadsheet software for business than the LinkedIn Learning course. As well as the essentials such as basic calculations, charts and graphs, “Excel Skills for Business Specialization” shows learners how to create reports, use VBA and macros and build professional dashboards. Content is taught through videos, readings, quizzes and downloadable Excel workbooks for practical exercises. It is perfect for those with little to no Excel experience who want to learn to use it in a professional capacity over a relatively short period of time.
Price
$49/£38 per month after seven-day free trial.
Duration
Three months at ten hours a week.
Pros
Cons
Assumes no prior knowledge of Excel but takes learners to a place where they can use it professionally.
The content is quite general — meaning it may not be the most useful course for learners with a specific area they want to focus on, such as business analytics.
Pre-requisites
None.
MS Excel – From 0 to Working Professional in 1 hour — Udemy
This course is great for a quick refresher on Excel skills picked up a long time ago. Image: Udemy/Screenshot by TechRepublic
“MS Excel – From 0 to Working Professional in 1 hour,” is a series of short video tutorials for either refreshing one’s memory of basic skills or learning them quickly for the first time. The instructor, Jason Zhang, prioritises speed in each lesson, which may not work for all learners. He also tailors it for business, market and financial analysts rather than for data scientists or engineers. The course covers the formulas, shortcuts and functions that are genuinely useful to professionals, like autofill and conditional formatting. While there are no set activities as part of the course, there is a downloadable workbook where learners can practise alongside a demonstration.
Price
Free.
Duration
One hour.
Pros
Cons
It’s free!
The instructor goes quickly.
Each lesson is short, so perfect for a refresher.
Not in-depth.
Tailored for business, market and financial analysts.
No coding or VBA.
Pre-requisites
None.
Microsoft Excel Certification Exam Prep: MO-201 Excel Expert — Udemy
“MO-201 Excel Expert” is one of the most recognised Excel certifications. Image: Udemy/Screenshot by TechRepublic
“Microsoft Excel Certification Exam Prep: MO-201 Excel Expert,” created by Maven Academy, is designed to prepare individuals for Microsoft Expert Certification for Excel 2019. To achieve this well-recognised certification, learners must pass the MO-201 Excel Expert Exam with a score of at least 70%. Microsoft recommends that candidates have approximately 150 hours of instruction and hands-on experience with Excel before taking the exam, so this eight-hour Udemy course is not sufficient preparation by itself. However, the course guides learners through the more advanced content that the exam covers, like analysing data with macros; formatting data, charts and Pivot Tables; and adjusting workbook settings. If you have intermediate Excel experience and want to take the Excel Expert certification, this course provides the perfect runway.
Price
$119/£59.99 + $100/£80 for the exam.
Duration
8.5 hours.
Pros
Cons
Prepares learners for gaining one of the most well-regarded excel certifications: Microsoft Excel Expert.
Not suitable for absolute beginners.
Pre-requisites
Familiarity with core Excel functionality is recommended.
Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros — Udemy
Macros and VBA are tools for automating tasks in Excel. Image: Udemy/Screenshot by TechRepublic
Excel Macros and Visual Basic for Applications, or VBA, are powerful tools used to automate repetitive tasks and enhance functionality in Excel. Macros are sequences of instructions recorded to perform specific tasks, while VBA is a programming language that allows users to write custom scripts for more complex automation. “Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros” is a course dedicated to teaching those already familiar with Excel to use these more advanced tools. It includes over 50 examples to practise, three step-by-step series teaching how to create a VBA tool from scratch, VBA syntax, Visual Basic Editor and much more. Leila Gharani, the instructor, is well-regarded, and reviewers have saved hours of work by implementing automations in their existing Excel projects as a result of the course.
Price
$199/£59.99.
Duration
22.5 hours + reading, quizzes and exercises.
Pros
Cons
Specific to macros and VBA.
Some reviewers say that content is covered at a fast pace.
The instructor is a Microsoft MVP and well-regarded.
Not suitable for complete beginners.
Pre-requisites
Familiarity with core Excel functionality is recommended.
Business Analytics with Excel: Elementary to Advanced — Coursera
“Business Analytics with Excel” was created by Johns Hopkins University academics. Image: Coursera/Screenshot by TechRepublic
Business analysts leverage Excel to identify trends, issues and opportunities for improvement in large data sets — and use that information to optimise business processes. The course “Business Analytics with Excel: Elementary to Advanced,” created by Johns Hopkins University, teaches aspiring or existing business analysts to make the most of the software. It introduces analytical frameworks used for decision making in professional settings, including linear and integer optimisation, decision analysis and risk modelling. Instructors begin with the basic mechanics of the framework before applying it to real-world business problems using Excel.
Price
$49/£38.
Duration
23 hours, or three weeks at seven hours a week.
Pros
Cons
Teaches via real-world business analytics problems.
Does not go into detail over the “how to” aspects.
Covers analytical frameworks, which are not included in all Excel courses.
Expects some experience with Excel.
Pre-requisites
Some working knowledge of Microsoft Excel.
Is it worth paying for Excel courses?
Deciding whether to invest in an Excel course depends on your specific needs. For those who already have basic knowledge and clear goals for what they want to learn, free resources like YouTube videos and discussion boards might suffice.
However, paid courses often provide structured learning paths, which can be particularly beneficial for mastering complex functions such as data analysis and financial modelling. These courses also frequently offer access to instructors, allowing for personalised support.
Additionally, paying for a course can serve as a strong motivator to stay committed and complete the training. The structured approach of a paid course ensures that you systematically build your skills and apply best practices. Many paid courses also offer certification upon completion or set you up to take a specific exam, like Microsoft’s MO-201, which can enhance job applications and appeal to employers.
Certifications in Excel can certainly be valuable when it comes to job applications. They demonstrate practical knowledge, while other applicants may just claim spreadsheet proficiency without any evidence. This is particularly useful at an entry-level stage, where candidates do not have much practical experience and rely more on qualifications and project work.
However, many hiring managers would also like to see some evidence of Excel use in a professional setting, especially if the certification would only represent the minimum requirements of the role. This is why, alongside a certification, it is a good idea to seek out practice exercises or templates that you can apply to your existing job. Make your own budget tracker or sudoku solver to expand your portfolio, or try assisting with user queries on the ‘r/excel’ Reddit thread.
How many hours does it take to get Excel certified?
Microsoft recommends that candidates for the official Excel Associate and Excel Expert qualifications have 150 hours of instruction and hands-on experience with the spreadsheet tool before attempting the exams.
Which job uses Excel the most?
The following roles tend to use Microsoft Excel on a daily basis:
Financial analyst: Excel is used for financial modelling, budgeting and forecasting, with a focus on tools like VLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH and pivot tables.
Accountant: Excel is often used alongside specialist accounting software to track expenses, reconcile financial records and prepare tax returns.
Data analyst: Excel is used to clean, organise and analyse data sets using tools like Power Query and pivot tables.
Business analyst: Excel is used to perform cost-benefit analyses, track project milestones and analyse business performance to support decision making.
Project manager: Excel is used to plan, track and report on project progress. PMs use Gantt charts, pivot tables for resource allocation and conditional formatting to monitor deadlines and milestones.
Methodology
When assessing online courses, we examined the reliability and popularity of the provider, the depth and variety of topics offered, the practicality of the information, the cost and the duration. The courses and certification programs vary considerably, so be sure to choose the option that is right for your goals and learning style.
We’re less than two weeks away from Google’s next Pixel event, but that hasn’t stopped insiders from flooding the internet with new leaks, and the company is also teasing its next-generation devices.
Now, according to Android Headlines, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold will have an interesting design as it’ll simultaneously be one of the thinnest and heaviest foldable smartphones on the market.
Their source claims the device measures “155.2 x 77.1 x 10.5 mm when [closed] and 155.2 x 150.2 x 5.1 mm when [open].” When folded, it is 1.6mm thinner than the first Pixel Fold, and unfolded it is 0.7mm slimmer. The report states that the next foldable even lost a little bit of weight, clocking in at 257g, almost 30g lighter than the previous generation.
However, as mentioned earlier, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold will still be one of the heavier contemporary foldables. Android Headlines points out that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the OnePlus Open both weigh less, at just 239g each.
Big screen phone
Not only is the phone lighter than before, but it’ll also reportedly have “the largest display for a foldable” when it is released. The publication says the inner screen will be an “8-inch Super Actua Flex Display” capable of hitting a peak brightness of up to 2,700 nits. Currently, the most recent foldable with the largest inner screen is the Xiaomi MIX Fold 4 at 7.98 inches, although if you look at older models, the MIX Fold 2 is even bigger at 8.02 inches.
On the flipside, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s outer screen is a 6.3-inch Actua Display. It’s certainly larger than the Pixel Fold, but it’s no industry behemoth. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 6 sports an outer screen of the same size.
Now, you may be thinking, “What’s the catch?” Did Google make serious concessions during development to achieve a large yet lightweight foldable? Looking at the leaks, there don’t appear to be any major downsides, as far as we can tell. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold will be one of the heftier options among its contemporaries, but even then, it still weighs less than the Pixel Fold.
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Another report by Android Headlines claims the smartphone houses a 4,560mAh battery, which could be the smallest in the Pixel 9 series. It is said to last 24 hours on a single charge, although with Extreme Battery Saver, that number stretches up to 72 hours. That’s not a bad battery life, but the other three may have it beat, as they can hit 100 hours under the same mode.
Additionally, the foldable is rumored to have limited storage capacity, peaking at 512GB, while the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL may offer a full terabyte of space.
As always, take this information with a grain of salt. We will not know how the slim design or the huge inner display will impact the smartphone until we get our hands on it and Google spills all the details. Be sure to stay tuned for our coverage of the August 13 launch event.
