The Internet of Things (IoT) can be characterized by the billions of, historically unintelligent physical devices, that are now connected to data networks via the Internet. These devices are made intelligent by embedding sensors and compute that communicate real-time data without human intervention. They communicate with themselves, IoT applications, and platforms – and enable business outcomes via the intelligence generated through data analytics.

What does hybrid work mean to you? When you think of it, your idea of hybrid work is typically something like this: You work most days at home, talking to people on your company’s platform of choice, and a few days a month, you make an appearance at the office to socialize. One side means being tied to your desk and having meetings on your computer all day. And the other, an image of freedom, you socializing with your coworkers the old-fashioned way, without needing laptops and WiFi and all that. Does it, though? Here are a few reasons why that’s a highly idealized and practically inaccurate picture of how hybrid work is really done.

When it comes to upgrading your IT infrastructure, one of the key selling points that both vendors and service providers raise is efficiency. Every industry has its own definition of the word, but in the most basic, literal sense, efficiency is a measure of how well a certain system works to produce a specific amount of output. In IT terms, a more efficient architecture generates a particular level of output consuming a smaller pool of resources such as human capital, energy, etc. In a business scenario, doing the same work for less input is a tantalizing proposition. It just makes sense.

As a follow-on to a recent project where we developed an Azure IoT door sensor solution, I wanted to see if we could figure out how to get a Garmin bike computer to send its event data to an Azure IoT Hub and then plot GPS location (and other interesting data) on a map that could be viewed as a web page. Recognizing that other third-party services like Strava and Garmin already offer similar functionality on their online services, we were driven to determine how this works under the covers and try to build our own solution from the ground up.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) 7 2203 Long Term Service Release (LTSR) was released back in March 2022, and this hotly anticipated release couldn’t have come at a better time. As a review, LTSRs are typically released once every two to three years and have an extended lifecycle and support policy. Citrix has spent time making significant improvements to Microsoft Teams, user experience, security features, and has also overhauled the HDX graphics protocol stack. HDX now boasts two to three times higher frame rates and a steady 60FPS at 4K resolutions – all very exciting stuff.