Is the cloud running out of steam?

Cloud repatriation, or reverting cloud workloads and storage back to on-premises or rented data centers, has become a hot topic after the cloud rush of the last few years. A recent Citrix poll found 94% of hundreds of IT and business leaders in the US have repatriated some workloads, while cloud cost control has become a major focus for execs amid skyrocketing cloud spend.

IT Brew talked to two experts: one who says companies should drop the cloud like a hot (and very expensive) potato, and the other who said reverting to on-premises would be a straight downgrade.

Huge savings

David Heinemeier Hansson, co-owner and chief technology officer of web software company 37signals, estimates his firm will save millions of dollars by exiting the cloud. Around $7 million over five years, to be exact.

Read more here.—TM

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected]. Want to go encrypted? Ask Tom for his Signal.

Join My First Million host Sam Parr as he interviews high-net-worth guests on his brand-new podcast, MoneyWise. In each episode, Sam digs into the personal finance and lifestyle of his guests, getting radically transparent about things like burn rates, portfolios, and spending habits. Listen now and learn the financial secrets of some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.

From smartphones that offer accessibility features to specialized IT programs, game controllers, AI-powered therapy stuffies, and over-the-counter hearables, tech and IT inclusivity has evolved significantly over the past decade. “When I started getting into this field—close 20 years ago—it’s hard to imagine,” Frances West, who was IBM’s first chief accessibility officer, told IT Brew. “Back then, actually, the term accessibility was not even well understood.”

“When I went to China in 2004 and started talking about this a little bit, the word accessibility was not translated to Chinese,” she said. “I helped them…[the] CDPF China Disabled Persons’ Federation, to literally go to the dictionary and find the word to translate accessibility.”

West, author of the book Authentic Inclusion Drives Disruptive Innovation, told IT Brew her journey into the accessibility tech space is one that started out quite simply by taking on a new job.

Read more here.—AF

It’s become a cliché to say that cars are computers, but it’s reality—and with connectivity comes security risk.

Bruce Schneier, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and famed computer security specialist, is concerned about the way vehicles and other IoT-connected devices have become “mobile surveillance devices” that spy on users and sell their data.

“Because they are computers, everything about computer security gets ported onto them,” Schneier said. “All of those things that happened with computers,” like spam and ransomware, “can now happen with IoT.”

Keep reading here.—EH

SSO isn’t enough. More than two-thirds of security pros say SSO tools aren’t a complete solution to securing employee identity. And half say it’s almost impossible to balance security and productivity perfectly. 1Password’s State of Enterprise Security Report explores why business as usual is no longer an option. Read on.