West Monroe polled 2,500 consumers about how much they spend each month on a variety of subscription services, finding that people are spending 15% more than they did in 2018. The types of subscriptions have also expanded as more companies create digital platforms and offerings to lure in consistent customers. The average consumer surveyed said they spend $273 per month on subscription services, up from $237 in 2018. This extra 15% equals an additional $430 spent each year....

In the latest edition of its NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report, the average amount of CVC per connection fell from 2.59Mbps to 2.44Mbps. The largest drop was in Victoria where capacity plummeted 11% from 5.6Tbps in the prior quarter to 4.98Tbps. The Australian Capital Territory saw a 7% drop in bandwidth, while Western Australia and the Northern Territory had 4% less capacity by the end of 2020, and Tasmania saw a 3% drop....

Student credit cards are specifically created for college students who have limited credit or who are just starting to build their credit. These types of cards typically have low credit limits and charge no annual fees. Students can use them to build a credit history and become more financially responsible. Having a credit card as a student can also be handy in case of emergencies or unexpected accidents when away from home....

With this end, users are looking for alternatives that offer the power and flexibility of Dark Sky, letting them know if they need an umbrella or sunscreen, and notifying them when rain is about to begin. Also: Flying soon? Flighty is a must-have iOS app for air travel I have a lot of weather apps. I spend quite a bit of time outdoors, shooting a lot of photos and videos and flying drones, so I need accurate weather predictions....

Yes, the motherboard is the backbone of a PC. Sure, what CPU and GPU you buy will greatly determine the performance, but remember that everything connects to the motherboard, and if you fit a great CPU and GPU to a poor motherboard, you’ll end up with a poor PC that offers a poor experience. A good motherboard makes all the difference. Pros Decent price for a high-end boardDDR5 supportMassive array of USB ports...

With nearly 90% of Oregon’s residents connected to broadband internet, the state ranks among the highest in the US when it comes to providing high-speed internet. Using the latest data available, we have found the cheapest and best internet service providers for your home internet needs, all of which offer great value, affordability, and reliability in the Portland area. The three fastest internet providers in Portland Xfinity – Best for heavy streamingEarthlink – Best for dataCenturyLink – Best overall value...

There are schools for you whether you’re an undergraduate or graduate student; whether you want flexible or more structured online learning. Among the state’s fastest-growing employment sectors are business services, education, and health services. Our list of top 10 online colleges in Pennsylvania includes bachelor’s and master’s degree programs that can prepare you for careers in the state’s growth industries. Top 5 online schools in Pennsylvania: Quick facts The 10 best online colleges in Pennsylvania ZDNet’s ranking methodology evaluates colleges and universities for inclusion on our lists independently and objectively....

Task management software helps manage, track, delegate, and assign tasks – whatever you or your organization is working on. Depending on the platform, task management software can have helpful templates, charts and graphs, customizable automation, and integration with other apps you use daily, like Slack or Microsoft Outlook. We’ve rounded up the best task management software options for all types of workers, whether you are a remote worker, a visual person, a spreadsheet expert, or just need something to help you keep track of life’s tasks....

Biden, in his first visit to Japan as president, presented the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity in a speech on Monday, citing four essential pillars – trade, supply chains, sustainable energy, and infrastructure – as well as tax and anti-corruption. Meanwhile, the White House claimed that the framework – as based on these pillars – will ensure that supply chains in the region develop greater resilience to protect against higher prices for consumers....

The warning comes as parts of New South Wales and Queensland continue to face heavy floods, which has led to 21 deaths and billions of dollars in property damage so far. Actuaries Institute CEO Elayne Grace said the benefits of leveraging data from smart devices, aerial imagery, and raw text input has allowed the insurance industry to uncover a greater dispersion of risk, resulting in a more accurate estimate of risk....

The company is working with the University of Windsor on the project – which runs on BlackBerry’s AtHoc critical event management platform – and testing it in Canada. In a statement, BlackBerry explained that Indigenous peoples across Canada are disproportionately impacted by flooding and a lack of clean water, which prompted the two organizations to join forces. The technology “provides autonomous year-round monitoring and an intelligent early warning system, collecting and processing large amounts of sensor data, and generating alerts based on the data insights....

The World Economic Forum’s new report, The Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2022, warns there are big discrepancies between bosses and information security personnel when it comes to the state of cyber resilience within organisations. According to the paper, 92% of business executives surveyed agree that cyber resilience is integrated into enterprise risk management strategies – or in other words, protecting the organisation against falling victim to a cyberattack, or mitigating the incident so it doesn’t result in significant disruption....

Brave launched its search engine two years ago after acquiring the Tailcat search engine. The company pledged to take on Google with a focus on privacy and an independent search index – rather than relying on, for example, Microsoft’s Bing search index, as DuckDuckGo did. Also: How to ensure your privacy with a web browser Now, in response to the success of the large language models (LLMs) behind OpenAI’s Microsoft-backed ChatGPT, Brave has launched Summarizer on Brave search, which it says is not based on ChatGPT....

Global companies can now take advantage of secure employee spending, budget creation in local currency, and same-day global reimbursements. The spending protections include PIN protection and 3D Secure, which asks spenders to complete an additional verification step. Same-day global reimbursements will be in the local currency of the employee. The transactions will be shown in real-time, and they will be reviewed and approved by finance teams. The finance teams can see employee’s card, cash, and reimbursement transactions in the currency they were made, plus the exchange rate that was used....

In light of potential delivery delays, new stay-at-home orders, and potential restrictions on our high streets, it’s worth ticking off items on the Christmas shopping list slightly earlier this year – if at all possible – and there are some great technology gifts and gadgets out there worth considering. The holiday season may not be full of cheer; however, there are some cool and useful tech gifts available – and some of them might tempt the gift-giver, too....

The upcoming California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) is considered a pioneer in data privacy and it strengthens the current California Consumer Privacy Act with stricter rules. Enforcement is also beefed up with the creation of the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) plus the ability of individual Californians to file suits against companies for non-compliance. The law was passed November 2020 and it applies to any company of sufficient size that does business in California which includes online sales without requiring a physical location....

Right now the cuckoo is the Australian government, and boy are they ramping up the rhetoric. Last Thursday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and two other senior ministers called on the tech giants to identify their users, telling them that if they didn’t do so then they were no longer platforms, immune from prosecution. They would be publishers, subject to Australia’s tough defamation laws. Social media is a “coward’s palace”, Morrison said....

The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz reported that Benbenisti decided against replacing current CEO Shalev Hulio after the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security added NSO Group to the Entity List “for engaging in activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States” last week. NSO Group did not respond to requests for comment, but it did confirm Benbenisti’s decision to Haaretz....

“In two years, models got a thousand times bigger and they required a thousand times more compute,” says Andrew Feldman, co-founder and CEO of AI system maker Cerebras Systems, summing up the recent history of neural nets in an interview with ZDNet via Zoom. “That is a tough trajectory,” says Feldman. Feldman’s company this week is unveiling new computers at the annual Hot Chips computer chip conference for advanced computing....

It was just a couple of months ago that we reviewed the Swift X, a svelte notebook that packed performance thanks to AMD’s Ryzen 7 processor and Nvidia discrete graphics. Now Acer is adding new versions with Intel instead, specifically the just-launched 12th-generation “Alder Lake” Core processors. The 14-inch SFX14-51G is the Intel analogue to the AMD version we previously looked at, while the SFX16-52G adds a 16-inch edition to the Swift X family....