When I wrote that we look for interest,ing articles, I made an exception, namely that we will not accept articles that reviewed or promoted commercial products. I felt that promotional articles were likely to be biased, sales-oriented and/or lacking in technical content. Reviews (particularly unfavorable ones) were bound to be criticized by the vendors as biased, uninformed, cursory, incomplete, etc. I still believe that these would be the results, although I have no evidence to prove it. At our annual AAAI Publications Committee meeting in August, the Committee suggested that I back off from this policy a little bit.

Today's market is filled with hundreds of vendors and plenty of marketing hype. But figuring out which solutions are worthwhile can be a challenge, especially for businesses with little experience in cybersecurity. So we asked actual buyers of enterprise security products for tips, and here's what they said. Businesses have to do their research. That means looking at customer recommendations instead of relying on what vendors say.

Consumer Reports, a major source for gadget and appliance reviews in the U.S., plans to start rating products on data security and privacy. On Monday, the non-profit publication unveiled a set of new testing standards it hopes will push the tech industry to create safer products. "The goal is to help consumers understand which digital products do the most to protect their privacy and security, and give them the most control over their personal data," the publication said. Already, cybersecurity experts are constantly finding new tech products, whether they be cars or smart teddy bears, that are often poorly secured and easy to hack. Other tech products have been found collecting data on their users, without their knowledge.

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables vendors to create an entirely new line of "smart" solutions for its existing and new markets. While the decision to go "smart" is straightforward, the decision of how to go "smart" is less obvious.

'SmartSpot' is a store-within-a-store that Lowe's is now expanding across the U.S.