Apple pulled the wraps off two new Apple Watches, two iPads and several services bundles at an event Tuesday held online. The new watches include the Series 6, which boasts performance improvements over the previous generation of the product, and the SE, an economy watch model. Apple also refreshed its basic iPad and the iPad Air, which is now based on the new A14 processor, a five-nanometer fabricated powerhouse.

Computer systems design and related services added 13,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's August jobs report. IT employment in July was up by more than 203,000 positions since the COVID-19 outbreak; and there were more than 235,000 job postings by U.S. employers, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association.

While changes in the restaurant industry have been in response to what is hoped to be a temporary crisis, it's likely that dining establishments will never again operate exactly as they did before coronavirus. Along with altering their physical designs to accommodate the demands of the pandemic, eateries must also turn to new models for order taking, making deliveries, and payment processing.

SugarCRM last month announced its acquisition of AI-as-a-Service provider Node. This marks the fourth acquisition by SugarCRM since the company's investment by Accel-KKR in August 2018. CRM Buyer discussed the current state of CRM platforms with SugarCRM CEO Craig Charlton, and how artificial intelligence is key to improved sales, service, and predictability in automated CX.

The fact is that people tend to judge us by our appearance. For a lot of folks on video calls, that appearance has degraded sharply this year. Wrinkled clothing, no makeup, partial beards, hair on men down to their shoulders, and work locations that are sloppy, dingy and dark. These all have become everyday experiences on video calls. A few vendors recently showcased new tech to address how we look and sound in online meetings.

Tech and finance professionals are joining the ranks of workers in other industries by delaying their return to in-person office work. According to thousands of employees and managers polled about their companies' plans regarding working from home, many U.S. employers have postponed return-to-office plans until as late as the third quarter of next year.

Amazon has cleared a key government hurdle in its flight path to deliver packages by airborne drones. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has granted the online retail giant a Part 135 certificate, which allows Amazon Prime Air to operate as an air carrier. The move lets Amazon make commercial deliveries under a trial program that uses drone technology announced last year.

Centralizing all tools and customer-effecting services into one system delivers great efficiencies for businesses. However, enabling customers to have the same experience in real time is the difference between a CRM and CXM. CRM Buyer pursued the potential transition process -- and the impact of both CRM and CXM products -- in a conversation with Thryv VP Ryan Cantor.

Coronavirus has ushered upon us an era of isolation and curtailed face-to-face operations in favor of virtual interactions. The service of demand and delivery has shifted mainly to digital channels. While this trend was visible in the pre-COVID world, the pandemic has accelerated digital-first engagement. Here are six ways to improve employee productivity and streamline business operations in the new normal.

Last week was the 25th anniversary of the biggest and most critical launch in computing history. The year running up to the Windows 95 launch was a fantastic mix of media showcases, previews, speculation and excitement. From the standpoint of demand, nothing that preceded the product even came close; and since then only Apple has been able to drive the same level of excitement.

To deliver exceptional customer experiences at-scale, retailers need to have their finger on the pulse of changing consumer expectations. Modern consumers expect checkout to be seamless and safe, no matter the digital channel or their geographic location. Let's look at best practices that retailers are using to revamp their checkout experience.

Municipalities throughout the United States have been switching from diesel- and natural gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles, to cut costs and reduce damage to the environment. However, funds are drying up as governments grapple with falling income due to lower taxes and business activity, along with increased costs to deal with the pandemic.

Users of video conference tools should be aware of the growing risk of impersonation attacks. Cybercriminals are capitalizing on the exponential increase of users turning to Zoom and other platforms to collaborate across work and friend networks. Researchers have identified attacks stemming from Australia, Germany, the U.S. and elsewhere.

A new coalition is building a low-cost solution to save lives in earthquake-threatened regions, rather than garnishing a profit from a new early-warning system. OpenEEW is an open-source IoT project with the goal to save lives by reducing the cost of earthquake early-warning systems and accelerating their deployments globally.

One of the enormous changes coming to us that has accelerated significantly of late is drone delivery, which promises to provide more speedy fulfillment of online orders. First for small items like meals and medicines, and eventually for larger items -- and even people. Still, drone delivery has some challenges to overcome.

The pandemic has exposed one fundamental, seemingly contradictory reality: people like to shop online, but they also crave in-person experiences. This era has also made clear that there's an answer to this conundrum: to provide shopping experiences that combine both physical and digital elements. Also known as "phygital" experiences, these strive to give customers the best of both the online and in-person worlds.

In-person workout sessions these days might seem like a thing of the past, while solitary workouts at home replace gym visits as an ongoing result of the pandemic. The use of artificial intelligence is not yet a common feature in fitness apps, but it is a main component in a popular India-based app now focused on growing users in the U.S. and Canada.

With hurricane season in full bloom and the additional prospect of natural disasters, the importance for companies to have disaster data plans in place is paramount. TechNewsWorld discussed disaster preparedness with a panel of IT experts. Check out their recommendations -- and make sure that you have not forgotten that one key thing that many companies forget to protect but regret afterward.

Customer loyalty has increased drastically in the last five years, though it has not reached boom status for many brands. Winning repeat business is increasingly difficult, especially with the economic uncertainty brought on by COVID-19. New studies reveal how solidly personalization in marketing drives brand loyalty, however consumers still feel that brands fail to do enough to recognize them as individuals.

To be sure, there are specialized circles that make regular explicit use of PGP. My aim in treating PGP here is twofold. The first is to shed some light on it for the uninitiated. The second, and more importantly, is to teach the daring among you how to wield this powerful tool.

Last week Qualcomm won its appeal long after settling with Apple, after Apple allegedly got caught fabricating evidence. This decision is critical to the long-term position of the U.S. in the technology market, and showcases that the U.S. legal system, while clearly under a lot of stress, still works.

Who can forget Princess Leia's hologram asking for Obi-Wan Kenobi's help in the movie Star Wars? That was perhaps the best-known hologram of the many used in the Star Wars franchise movies. The power and promise of holographic technology have been depicted in science fiction stories for years. Today, several companies are at work to bring immersive transportation to the real world.

The growing work-from-home movement amid the coronavirus and its likely continuing challenges has created the need for additional broadband capacity in more places. Mobile telco and other service providers are rallying around 5G wireless as the most promising solution for reliably faster Internet connectivity. But the path to rolling out 5G has been rocky and spotty.

Like it or not, disputes do arise from time to time. So it's always a good idea to plan for the worst and hope for the best. A website development contract should identify how the parties will handle disputes. Nowadays, contractual disputes can be handled in a variety of ways, in more than one forum. The most obvious forum, of course, is the courthouse.

Earthquake alerts are being incorporated into Android, Google's mobile operating system. The feature will be included in a refresh of Google Mobile Services, so a full operating system upgrade won't be necessary. That means the new addition will be available to most Android users -- except those in China, which doesn't use GMS.

Apple's "Walled Garden" was built to protect consumers from malicious applications, but it can also protect the company from competition, as Microsoft and Facebook discovered recently. Late last week, Apple refused to allow Microsoft to offer its xCloud streaming gaming app for iOS and iPadOS at the Apple App Store. At the same time, it approved a scaled-down version of Facebook's gaming app, sans streaming gaming, into the store.

Amazon has cleared a major regulatory hurdle in its quest to deliver Internet service to unserved and underserved areas of the earth. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved, with some conditions, Amazon's Kuiper Project, a US$10 billion low-orbit constellation made up of more than 3,000 satellites.

Google's Nest line of smart home products will be combined with ADT's security services in a partnership announced Monday by the two companies. As part of the agreement, Google will invest US$450 million into ADT to acquire a 6.6 percent interest in the security and smart home solutions provider. The deal gives Google access to an important channel for its smart home products.

Like a lot of you, last week I watched the congressional testimony from the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google -- and there were a lot of apparent things that were problematic. One is that there are folks in Congress that likely shouldn't be in Congress, and another is that each company has some serious issues they haven't dealt with.

Google's domination of the online ad market appears to have stalled since Amazon last year became the third-largest digital ad platform in the U.S. behind the Google-Facebook duopoly. This may have driven Google to accelerate its push into e-commerce, focusing on what it calls the "messy middle" -- the space in the customer journey between what triggers the purchase and the actual purchase itself.