Stories by John Brandon

Despite its name, the annual Consumer Electronics Show isn't wholly consumer tech. These seven announcements--covering data analytics, collaboration, RAM and more--may impact the systems and devices your employees use in 2013.

Technology trends can come and go with little more than a (Google) Wave, but seven trends of 2012 are here to stay. Some came out of nowhere, while others emerged after years of development.

The 2012 London Olympics weren't just about athletic prowess. This year's games saw more data leave Olympic Park and move around the world than ever before. The applications, infrastructure and technical know-how required to pull this off offers valuable lessons for CIOs as they plan IT projects.

From implementing single sign-on to including social media in the lineup, shops are doing what they need to make the cloud work for them.

The applications, devices and services that have changed the way we do business often started as small-scale alternatives to the status quo. Now we can't survive without them.

Self-driving electric taxis, smart appliances and municipal solar power are all amenities enjoyed by the residents of the futuristic Masdar City in the Middle East. Here's how they'll make their way to the U.S.

Think you have to manage a lot of IT gear? These massive facilities - each at least 100,000 square feet and most much larger than that -- house thousands of servers and process millions of documents, images and videos every day.

At the same time, we also know that technology will change dramatically. Who could have predicted even 10 years ago that the CIO would have to deal with complications such as cloud security and virtualisation? To find out how the role will change in eight years, we tapped industry leaders, analysts and CIOs themselves to discover what the challenges of 2020 for the CIO will be like. Here's what we found out.

A help desk can be a real lifesaver for employees, not to mention a productivity boost. If a keyboard stops working or Outlook keeps crashing, a technician is just a phone call away. Even complex problems can usually be resolved internally, and relatively quickly, without the need for an outside vendor.

The IT department is often at the forefront of an organization's technology innovation -- but not always. When it comes to the concept of a standard desktop -- every employee's core install consisting of an operating system, applications, hardware drivers and a security suite -- IT has moved at a snail's pace.

A help desk can be a real lifesaver for employees, not to mention a productivity boost. A keyboard stops working, or Outlook crashes repeatedly, and a technician is just a phone call away. Even complex issues can usually be resolved internally, and relatively quickly, without needing an outside vendor.

Upgrades, system migration, support headaches -- IT folks are probably dreading the next major Windows rollout. Yet Windows 8, which is scheduled to move to the beta stage in late February and will likely launch in the fall, does offer several compelling new features for both IT and end users.

Criminal hackers never sleep, it seems. Just when you think you've battened down the hatches and fully safeguarded yourself or your business from electronic security risks, along comes a new exploit to keep you up at night. It might be an SMS text message with a malevolent payload or an errant signal designed to jam GPS receivers.

IT is often at the forefront of technology innovation -- but not always. When it comes to the concept of a standard desktop -- every employee's core install that consists of an operating system, applications, hardware drivers and a security suite -- IT has moved at a snail's pace.

Automobile technology has become so advanced that today's cars are essentially computers with wheels. So why aren't we using them to surf the Web, communicate with other cars or order food at nearby restaurants?