ZDNet Health IT Roundup: Fitness bands, Samsung working conditions, fast virtualization, and the Google crash
Welcome to this week's ZDNet Health IT Roundup. Our crew here at ZDNet work around the clock from all over the world. In addition to my own regular health-related column, I'll showcase a selection of health IT-related articles posted by worldwide team. Here are some articles you may find interesting.
Top stories of interest to health IT professionals
Google services go down; Internet panics
Time to go home?
Samsung is sued over poor working conditions in Brazil
The electronics giant could face a fine of $107mi if found guilty — but the problems might have just begun.
Fixya rates five leading fitness bands: which should you buy?
There's a growing interest in fitness bands, and if you're thinking of buying one, the Fixya trouble-shooting website has produced a report on the main problems with the top brands
Five Big Data Trends Revolutionizing Retail
More retailers are finding that Big Data can revitalize an industry challenged by a slow economy, increasingly empowered consumers, mobile proliferation and an ever-growing number of channels.
Yes, virtualization is faster (sometimes) than native hardware
Three studies show that in some circumstances VMware vSphere can deliver faster performance than native computing.
Google Cloud Storage now automatically encrypts all data
Current users shouldn't actually notice a difference in performance or usage as this is all set up to take place behind-the-scenes.
Microsoft Outlook, SkyDrive outages hit users worldwide
Some Microsoft users are reporting problems accessing their Outlook, Skydrive and Contacts on August 14.
Qld Police moves against online child exploitation
'Every photo is a crime scene,' according to Queensland Police Service, which has launched a new system to help investigators battle crimes against children.
Are tablets the first step toward mobile or non-existent classrooms?
When students can use tablets in school, instead of books, does it mean that we're about to see completely mobile classrooms or no classrooms at all?
Other health-related IT coverage around ZDNet
Facebook opens up about new infrastructure project: Apache Giraph
The engineering team cited that it is moving along with Apache Giraph because it scales "at an incredibly high rate."
Where does OpenStack go from here?
OpenStack will be making many minor improvements, but adding Amazon Web Services API support won't be one of them.
Oracle launches appliance for rapid cloud deployment
Oracle has announced the Virtual Compute Appliance, a software and hardware stack designed to be able to support easy deployments of applications on virtualised infrastructure.
Does your cloud strategy need more management discipline?
Around for more than 15 years, Windward IT Solutions helps business consider and manage cloud services within the context of their entire IT infrastructure.
IBM teams with more than 1,000 universities to foster data-driven professionals
IBM is trying to pave the way for finding more "data-driven" professionals by starting in at the university level now.
Not-for-profits' future is IT-enabled and IT-dependent
Oxfam's CIO David Horner spoke about the technology delivering NFPs greater transparency, accountability, and community engagement.
Zynga COO, CTO among those reportedly departing the company
UPDATED (2x): They aren't alone either, based on new reports about the heavily-trafficked revolving door at Zynga.
Samsung aims to crowdsource flexible display business models
Samsung is taking a shot at gamification for business models. Can Samsung build a flexible display ecosystem.
Amazon Web Services launches mobile push notifications
With the move, AWS is courting more mobile developers who need to push notifications to prod user behavior.
Business intelligence, tackling legacy systems top priorities for CIOs
Government tech chiefs are seeing small increase in budget, and putting BI, mobile and security on their wishlists.