Voice-connected devices are now found in 1 in 4 U.S. households. And the best city in America for tech jobs isn’t in Silicon Valley.

Those are key findings from the latest IT research. Here’s your tech provider’s update.

Voice tech surges

The holiday season is starting, and that means it’s time to think gifts. What are you going to give this year to that favorite customer, family member, friend — or even yourself?

Intel is here to help. The company just published its 2018 Holiday Look Book, a gift guide for 2-in-1s, notebooks, gaming desktops, all-in-ones and more, all running on Intel microprocessors.

Multicloud is mainstream. Fully 85% of organizations now operate multicloud environments. And most of the remaining 15% plan to go multicloud within the next three years.

So finds a new IBM survey of 1,016 C-level executive in 19 countries and over a dozen industries. The survey was conducted earlier this year, and the results were released by IBM this week.

Cyber-attacks on large corporations may be the ones that make the headlines, but small and medium businesses are vulnerable to hackers, too.

In fact, more than 60% of SMBs polled in Sept. 2017 by Ponemon Institute said they had suffered a cyber-attack in the past 12 months. And more than half (54%) experienced data breaches in the past year that involved customer and employee information.

Think your customers are prepared for the end of Windows 7 basic support, coming in Jan. 2020? Think again. Many don’t even know when it’s coming.

According to a new poll report, nearly a third of IT and cybersecurity pros (31%) wrongly believe Win7 support has already ended. Oops.

If you have midsize companies among your customers, the odds are good that they’re either doing or planning a digital transformation.

Among large organizations, only 4% have no digital initiative at all, according to research and advisory firm Gartner.

The global media industry could gain $1.3 trillion from 5G within the next decade.

That’s according to a new report conducted by research and consulting firm Ovum and commissioned by Intel. Entitled “5G: The Economics of Entertainment,” it foresees a transformed wireless media landscape.

Market watchers IDC and Gartner just released their figures on PC shipments in this year’s third quarter. They agree that Lenovo is now the top supplier by units shipped worldwide. And they agree that about 67 million PCs were shipped in Q3.

Chrome OS devices aren’t just for kids anymore.

Chromebooks have caught on in schools, and it’s easy to see why. The devices are inexpensive, durable and easy to maintain.

But Chrome devices are going upscale. Earlier this week HP introduced its Chromebook x360 14, which features a convertible hinge and 14-inch display.

October is shaping up as a big month for hardware.

Yesterday, Intel introduced its 9th Gen Core CPUs for gaming systems. Today, Google is expected to announce phones, tablets and more.

Also yesterday, both Facebook and HP upped their hardware games. Facebook introduced its first hardware product. And HP introducing a sleek, larger Chromebook convertible. Here’s your update.

HP Chromebook x360 14