Today’s topics include Microsoft discontinuing support for pre-Internet Explorer 11 browsers, Cisco helping businesses deal with shadow IT, new features coming to the next-generation Moto smartphone, and businesses projecting drone delivery to commence as early as 2017.
Only Internet Explorer 11 and Edge are left standing after Microsoft pulled support for IE 8, 9 and 10 yesterday.
Microsoft has been warning users that Jan. 12 marks the date the company stops issuing updates and security fixes to the older versions of the browser software, which has been the default Windows Web browsing experience since the days of Windows 95. Users still running IE 8, 9 and 10 will begin to receive notifications urging them to upgrade.
Cisco Systems wants to help CIOs get better control over the sprawling issue of shadow IT.
The giant networking vendor is rolling out its Cloud Consumption as a Service offering. It is designed to enable partners and end users to discover and monitor the use of public clouds across an entire organization to help reduce the risks involved when business units access cloud services without input from their IT departments.
The new service includes analytics and benchmarking capabilities that give CIOs and IT departments greater insight into the extent of shadow IT in their organizations.
The next generations of Moto smartphones will get integrated fingerprint readers and larger screens of at least 5 inches as the rebranded smartphone maker works to compete more effectively in the mobile marketplace.
The details of the coming features were revealed recently by Chen Xudong, mobile chief of Moto’s parent company, Lenovo.
The announcements came a week after Moto said it would drop the former Motorola nameplate from its products, while rebranding its smartphones with the names of its existing main and budget lines—Moto and Vibe.
Google and other businesses could start using small commercial drones to deliver products in urban areas starting as early as next year. That’s according to David Vos, head of Project Wing at Google X, the semi-secret lab that houses several of the company’s Moonshot projects.
On Jan. 11, CNN quoted Vos as saying that enough unoccupied airspace is available in the U.S. currently to enable the safe operation of drones in the relatively short term.