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Sep 22, 2020
Microsoft will enable Teams users to overlay a presenter's video feed when displaying content such as slides - part of its aim to improve meetings as the number of video calls rockets during the pandemic.
The feature, due out later this year, is among a handful of updates to the Teams collaboration platform unveiled at Microsoft's Ignite conference Tuesday. The company also highlighted enhancements to office-based meeting tools and new capabilities to promote employee wellbeing.
The custom layouts feature lets users place a video feed of a meeting presenter onto the foreground of a PowerPoint presentation, thanks to the same artificial intelligence segmentation technology used in Teams background blur and Together mode. This will enable meeting participants to view the presenter's hand and face gestures, as well as allow for weather forecaster-style highlighting of content.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 22, 2020
IT administrators voiced strong support for Microsoft's move to a fewer-than-two-upgrades-a-year Windows 10 cadence, even as many question the way the Redmond, Wash. developer has reduced the number of refreshes.
Approximately 75% of nearly 500 IT professionals said that Windows 10's feature upgrades - which officially remain on a twice-annual schedule - should be released no more than once a year. More than half of those admins - 40% of all polled - voted for one upgrade per year while the remainder, or 35%, chose the one-every-two-years option from a survey on patching, updating and upgrading.
[ Further reading: How to handle Windows 10 updates ]
Less than 8% picked a twice-a-year cadence as their preference, and only a tenth of that - or 0.8% - want more than two each year on themselves and their colleagues.
To read this article in full, please click here
(Insider Story)
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Sep 22, 2020
Android 11's got plenty of good stuff going on, both on the surface and under the hood — but one of the release's most promising new additions is turning out to be one of its least compelling elements.
I'm talking about Bubbles, the long-under-development feature that first came into the picture as part of last year's Android 10 update but ended up getting pushed back to this year's release. If you haven't thought much about Bubbles since getting Android 11 (or since reading about the software, if you're using a non-Pixel phone and still waiting), well, I can't say that I blame ya.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 22, 2020
It still seems a little counter-intuitive that one of the world's biggest technology firms was also one of the least amenable to remote working, but this, I've heard, describes the culture at Apple pre-COVID-19.
Now things have changed there, just as they have elsewhere.
Going back better
Speaking during a more extensive interview conducted at The Atlantic Festival, Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed his company's experience around remote working, explaining that around 10% to 15% of company staff have been working at the office during the pandemic. The remaining 85% to 90% of Apple employees are currently working from home, he said, admitting that he does so himself, some of the time.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 22, 2020
This pilot fish is at a remote office to help a user, Barney, with a software problem, but he can't help noticing that Barney periodically jumps in his chair. Fish finally asks Barney if he's feeling OK, and Barney says he's fine, but he periodically gets a mild shock from his desk.
It's a mid-century steel-frame desk with a Formica top. This office has had some renovations, and fish wonders whether something was mis-wired. It's not his area of responsibility as IT desktop support, but fish decides to just take a look.
Behind Barney's desk he finds a large wire paperclip that had managed to contact the hot pole of a slightly loose plug in a power strip and the steel leg of the desk. As long as Barney's contact was with the Formica desktop, nothing would happen, but when he brushed the steel trim around the edge, he'd get a shock.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 22, 2020
In the time of COVID-19, with so many people working from home, it's inevitable that many will be using Windows 7 devices. And that's a big security problem for IT. As of January 2020, Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft. That means no security patches — particularly dangerous at a time when many people are connecting to enterprise networks from their Windows 7 PCs.
It adds up to one of the biggest security risks many companies have seen for some time. Unpatched systems can be more easily hacked than ones that regularly receive security patches. Hackers go after low-hanging fruit — and right now Windows 7 is the lowest fruit there is. As the FBI stated in an August 2020 warning to businesses:
To read this article in full, please click here
(Insider Story)
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Sep 21, 2020
Apple has introduced a selection of interesting improvements for iOS and Mac admins in the recently introduced iOS 14, including new APIs for mobile device management (MDM) and usability improvements.
The easy (but good) stuff
One of the better enhancements is the introduction of choice. iPhone and iPad users can now choose which web browser and/or email app they want to use. While Safari is highly secure (and more secure in the latest OS iterations), the real beauty of this improvement is in email, as enterprises built around use of Microsoft Office will now be able to standardize on use of Outlook on enterprise mobile devices. The process is pretty simple: Install the app you want to use and then set it as default in application Settings on the device.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 21, 2020
A very large thunderstorm is headed for this company's data center, and there's reason to worry, says a pilot fish working there.
The company is the product of several mergers back in the late '90s, when it was decided that the newest data center would be the new company's production data center. That particular data center was, of course, built for a much smaller company than the merged entity, so it had to be immediately expanded.
Laments fish: "In the intervening years, the quantity of servers and network and disk hardware in the data center increased rapidly, but the UPS and emergency generator didn't keep up with the growth."
Nonetheless, with that big storm on the way, a high-level manager overrides the advice of the technical support team and decides to switch the data center over to emergency power, rather than risk the possibility that the city power could be disrupted.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 21, 2020
The tech industry has been talking about increasing minority participation for decades — I wrote my first story on the topic for an IEEE Computer Society magazine in 1990, and things have changed little since then.
This year, B2B review site TrustRadius surveyed employees at both tech providers and IT organizations to find out the status of ethnic minorities in the tech industry, and sought out minority voices for a direct take. The People of Color Tech Report released today drew 1,207 respondents, 53% of whom identified as people of color: 16% were Black, 16% Asian, 12% Hispanic, 5% Indigenous, and 7% other non-White, such as mixed-race.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 18, 2020
If the merger between Arm and NVIDIA is approved (I expect Great Britain, the EU, and China will have reservations), the result could be a massive change in AI capability. And, given that Arm is dominant in mobile devices and IoT, and NVIDIA is dominant in both graphics and AI training, it's a merger that could have a dramatic impact on how we work as well.
We've had several efforts, most recently from Dell and Microsoft, to integrate smartphones with PCs. But there has been no dedicated bridge hardware vendor yet. Yes, Microsoft seems to be working in that direction with its Surface Duo, but it is a niche product and if it does go mainstream, it likely won't be until its third version. Qualcomm could do this, but its Always Connected PC effort is just getting off the ground - even though the company does have critical mass with cell phones. Even so, Qualcomm doesn't seem that interested in blending the two concepts.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 18, 2020
A year and a half after launching the free file-sharing service Firefox Send, Mozilla canned the concept, part of a retrenchment that began this summer when the organization laid off a quarter of its workforce.
Firefox Notes, another service that got its start from the Test Pilot program, also went under the knife Thursday. Notes will be decommissioned on Android Nov. 1, and Mozilla will not provide security updates to the desktop browser's add-on after that date.
"As Mozilla tightens and refines its product focus in 2020, today we are announcing the end of life for two legacy services that grew out of the Firefox Test Pilot program," Mozilla said in an unsigned post to its primary blog.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 18, 2020
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, governments around the world have highlighted the importance of contact-tracing apps to monitor infection levels, let people know when they may have been exposed and as a pre-cursor to a safe return to the office.
However, getting a contact-tracing app right is not easy - just look at the British government's lengthy (and expensive) failed first attempt to launch an app in England as evidence. From privacy concerns to issues around centralized vs decentralized models, there have been few countries to release an app that was both successful and had widespread adoption.
To read this article in full, please click here
(Insider Story)
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Sep 18, 2020
This pilot fish sets up a point-of-sale system for a local restaurant that's moving into a new location, but two days later, one of the owners calls and says the system isn't working. They're getting a message on one of the stations that it can't connect to the server.
Any problems with the server? asks fish.
"I don't think so, but it's turned off right now."
Fish: I have a suggestion …
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 18, 2020
Twenty years ago this month Microsoft released a stink bomb of an operating system, Windows Me. Unstable, unloved and unusable, that was Windows Me. Many people believe it was the worst version of Windows ever built.
The anniversary got me thinking: Was Windows Me really the worst Windows ever, or was it outdone by other notable flops?
I've used every version of Windows since the Windows 1.x version that shipped with the desktop publishing program Aldus PageMaker (later Adobe PageMaker), so I've had plenty of experience with the best and worst of Windows. Here's my list of the worst three Windows versions of all time. I'm offering them in order of ascending horribleness, so you'll have to wait to get to the bottom of the article to find the worst of the worst.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 18, 2020
Samsung recently announced its second-generation Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G and Microsoft announced its Surface Duo foldable devices. Others have tried foldables in the past with limited success (LG, Huawei, Motorola), so why push these out these now?
The market for smartphones has gone tepid, with overall sales falling (and not just because of COVID-19). With little incentive to upgrade due to a lack of major compelling new features, couple with increasing prices on premium smartphones, people are keeping their devices longer. (This is true for both Android and iOS phones.)
[ Keep up on the latest thought leadership, insights, how-to, and analysis on IT through Computerworld's newsletters. ]
Users who once kept their devices for an average of 12 to 18 months now routinely stretch that out to a more PC-like 24 to 36 months. Vendors believe, rightly so, that new and innovative products will drive sales in an otherwise saturating market - Apple has played this strategy well over the years. And innovative new products like foldables can drive a renewed interest and increase sales.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 17, 2020
Apple released two new Apple Watches, new generations of the iPad and iPad Air and new subscription services and plans at its Time Flies event on September 15. Macworld senior writer Michael Simon and Computerworld executive editor Ken Mingis join Juliet to discuss highlights and how new releases compare to previous generations. Plus, is the iPad Air as good as the iPad Pro for enterprise use? And when can you expect to see the iPhone 12 and new MacBook events?
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 17, 2020
Apple on Wednesday upgraded Safari for Mac owners running macOS Catalina or macOS Mojave, giving those users a new browser before releasing the Big Sur operating system refresh.
Safari 14 can be downloaded by selecting "System Preferences" from the Apple menu, then clicking on the "Software Update" icon.
[ Related: 9 steps to lock down corporate browsers ]
The browser will also be bundled with macOS 11, aka Big Sur, which has yet to be given a release date. This week's upgrade targets users who will, whether permanently or temporarily, stick with 2019's Catalina or 2018's Mojave.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 17, 2020
I get it. You're one of those enterprises that doesn't (yet) support Apple products among employees, but does that moratorium extend to the C-suite? I'm willing to bet it does not, and that's why even Windows-only IT must learn how to secure Apple's products.
Ignore the fantasy, this is reality
The reality is that Apple's products are popular in the enterprise. And while there are many businesses that don't officially support them, one section of civic society that pretty much always do their own thing no matter what they ask others to do are the boys and girls in the C-suite. I can still recall the number of CFO's I spoke with early on in the iPad days who were deeply interested in trying the Apple tablet. Many did.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 17, 2020
The 2019 calendar year will long be remembered in the eyes of public market watchers as the year of WeWork. Once billed as the most valuable startup in the United States, the company unraveled in dramatic fashion after filing its S-1 with the SEC, thanks to numerous issues with the company's business model and management practices.
This event, along with a succession of dud listings from such big names as Slack and Uber, spooked the markets, with IPO registration withdrawals up almost 50 percent in 2019, according to research firm Renaissance Capital. This left a sizeable backlog of potential listings for 2020, with the holiday rental company Airbnb headlining that list.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 17, 2020
Who doesn't want more bandwidth?
I sure do, and I currently have 300Mbps to my home office via Spectrum cable. What I really want is a Gigabit via fiber optic to my doorstep. Maybe I'll get it someday. But, what I do know for a fact is I'm not going to get Gigabit-per-second speeds from 5G. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.
At the moment, there are a lot of things the telecomms are telling you in one ad after another that's just not true. I know - shocking news right? But, even by their standards, 5G is pretty bogus.
[ Related: Enterprise mobility 2020: In a pandemic, UEM to the rescue ]
Let's start with the name itself. There is no single "5G." There are, in fact, three different varieties, with very different kinds of performance.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 17, 2020
Don't look now, but Chrome OS is about to undergo the biggest and most transformative change in the platform's history.
It's something we've actually been hearing about since April but that's just starting to take shape publicly for the first time this week. And while its practical, surface-level significance is without a doubt massive, the philosophical effect of the shift may be the most monumental of all.
Buckle up, gang. We've got some seriously deep thinking to do.
Chrome OS and the browser foundation
We'll go beyond the surface to explore the next-level impact of this move in a second — but first, let's address the basics of what's happening here and why it matters from a practical perspective. Google, in case you haven't heard, is working on an ambitious plan to separate Chrome the browser from Chrome OS the operating system. As it stands now, Chrome itself is an integral part of Chrome OS. It's built right into the operating system. And that creates a couple of unfortunate challenges.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 17, 2020
A majority of IT administrators polled this summer said that the twice-a-year Windows 10 feature upgrades are not useful - or rarely so - a stunning stance considering how much effort Microsoft puts into building the updates.
About 58% of nearly 500 business professionals who are responsible for servicing Windows at their workplaces said that Windows 10 feature upgrades - two annually, one each in the spring and fall - were either not useful (24%) or rarely useful (34%).
[ Related: Windows 10 version 2004: Key enterprise features ]
Only 20% contended that the upgrades were useful in some fashion, while a slightly larger chunk - 22% - choose a noncommittal neutral as a response, claiming that the operating system's updates were neither useful nor not useful. (It might be best to consider this answer as undecided since in this binary world if something is not not useful, that must mean it is useful.)
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 16, 2020
As anticipated, Apple recently announced new watches, iPads and services and you can read all about these products in a few minutes here, but two announcements stand out as particularly interesting for enterprise users:
iPad Air 4 and the A14 Bionic processor it contains.
A breath of iPad Air
Apple's fourth gen iPad Air was the star of the show, primarily because the tablet now contains Apple's most powerful A14 processor, which isn't yet available in any other product including the iPad Pro or iPhone. It will be in future.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 16, 2020
This pilot fish takes a job teaching at a local college, and his office is right next to the IT department.
"I helped out between classes when the IT guys were swamped," says fish. "One day while the IT staff was out to lunch, I heard the phone ring and no one was manning the help desk, so I fielded the call."
The caller is the office manager, and she's complaining that her printer won't print. Fish doesn't have a class for a couple of hours, so he decides to see what he can do and heads to her office.
Turns out the fix is simple: The printer is out of paper. Fish explains this to the office manager, who asks fish where she should get paper from. Fish shrugs — that's not his department.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 16, 2020
It's been a big week for Airtable and its customizable spreadsheet platform. On top of unveiling new features designed to boost its automation, low-code and team collaboration cred, the San Francisco, Ca.-based company unveiled $185 million in series D funding.
Founded in 2012, Airtable has seen a sharp rise in during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 200,000 businesses now using its app. By combining the power of a database with the accessibility of a spreadsheet, Airtable lets users create shared apps for a variety of purposes, whether as a task management tool or a simple CRM platform. The company's approach has proved popular and others have launched similar services; Microsoft unveiled its Lists app earlier this year and Amazon Web Service's Honeycode offers comparable functions.
To read this article in full, please click here
(Insider Story)
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Sep 15, 2020
It's been nearly a year and a half since our beloved Google Inbox service made its way into the virtual beyond — and I don't know about you, but I'm still mourning its absence.
Sure, you can kinda-sorta recreate some of its features within Gmail, including its time-based delivery system for certain types of messages. You can even bring a minimalist, Inbox-inspired approach into Gmail's interface, thanks to the ongoing work of one of the app's original creators and designers.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 15, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic - and the lockdowns that followed last spring - wrought changes across IT operations and strategy as businesses and employees adjusted to a new environment. But what changes were made, and which ones are likely to last?
Spiceworks Ziff Davis, a B2B tech marketplace, polled 1,073 IT buyers in North America and Europe in June and July 2020 to find out. The results in its 2021 State of IT report, released today, show that the pandemic-fueled transformation will continue, affecting both planning and budgets for the long term.
[ Keep up on the latest thought leadership, insights, how-to, and analysis on IT through Computerworld's newsletters. ]
The survey shows that 76% of businesses envision long-term IT changes, with more than half planning to retain flexible work policies (such as remote work); 64% of companies enabled remote work in 2020 due to the pandemic.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 15, 2020
We've learned a lot during the pandemic. We've learned that remote working can be productive and that multi-cloud, multi-platform deployments are very likely to form key components of the future enterprise. And we've learned that Apple's products are good for business.
Cloud services for the people
Think about on-premises and off-site service provision:
While it's true that heavily regulated industries will keep key components of their enterprise stack on premises (or at least at highly secure server farms), they will still make use of cloud-based services for some of their implementation.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 15, 2020
It's the '90s, and this pilot fish is working in a company that makes a national brand of snack cake. When a co-worker on the help desk gets a call saying that the computer in the shortening-pumping room has stopped working, fish decides to tag along.
They find the sanitation crew mopping up several hundred pounds of shortening that had escaped from a broken pipe coupler. Sitting on the floor is the PC that has stopped working, a Dell GX1. The height of the flood is plain to see from the high-shortening mark on the PC's case: around four inches.
The electronics are probably baked, so to speak, but they have nothing to lose, so they remove the motherboard and steam-clean it, letting it set for a week to dry thoroughly.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 14, 2020
Nvidia, best known as a major player in graphics processing, today announced it had locked down a deal to purchase U.K.-based chip licensing giant Arm Limited for $40 billion.
According to Bloomberg, Nvidia will pay Arm's current owner, SoftBank Group, $12 billion in cash and $21.5 billion in stock, along with other payments, including a signing bonus and possible milestone moneys based on meeting performance targets.
Arm does not manufacture silicon; instead it designs processors. It then licenses those designs for others to customize - or not - before fabricators crank out chips from silicon wafers. Arm's impact has been massive, primarily because its made-for-mobile chips have powered virtually every smartphone since Apple's 2007 introduction of its iPhone.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 14, 2020
In the near future, you'll attend meetings in a conference room that exists in your Apple AR glasses.
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Sep 14, 2020
This contractor pilot fish is at a client site — and, as usual, he and his cohorts are dealing with issues that weren't originally contemplated when they were brought in.
"The network was going crazy," fish reports. "This was a big site, with lots of routers and subnets, all carefully segregated. Something was hosing this big time, and sniffers told us we were seeing ‘contamination' between subnets."
Fish and his team eventually pin down where the contamination is happening. It's in two subnets in adjacent wings of the corporate building: the ones for the legal department and software development.
So fish and his team decide to walk the floor to see if they can spot anything out of the ordinary.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 14, 2020
Over the past decade, advances in cloud computing have driven a centralized approach to system administration and operations, while the growth of mobile computing, SaaS, and the internet of things (IoT) have driven computing toward a distributed architecture. With the rollout of 5G and edge computing technologies, companies are now looking to take advantage of both approaches while boosting performance for their applications.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 14, 2020
The future of enterprise tech won't be confined to the data center mothership -- nor even the public cloud. Wedded to the internet of things, edge computing puts processing horsepower wherever it needs to go.
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Sep 12, 2020
Microsoft this week changed how it will deliver updates to the parts of Windows 10 that receive and install files from Windows Update, claiming that a new bundling approach will eliminate confusion and streamline the OS's regular refreshes.
Up to now, Microsoft has distributed each servicing stack update (SSU) separately from any cumulative update (CU). The new practice will combine the two - SSU and CU - into one package for download and deployment by IT administrators.
[ Related: Windows 10 May 2020 Update (a.k.a. 2004) review ]
Most Windows end users would be hard pressed to define SSU, even though their PCs have received numerous examples. Not an update to the Windows Update service itself, an SSU is instead a refresh of the components of Windows 10 needed to receive, verify and install files from that service. SSUs are a necessary part of the Windows servicing and maintenance ecosystem, as Microsoft makes plain.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 11, 2020
IBM had a briefing this week on how its Watson AI product was used at the U.S. Open and something jumped out at me that could help overtaxed workers get more work done.
I'm hearing a lot of complaints about people having to jump into back-to-back virtual meetings - and getting less done as a result. With fires up and down the west coast, the ongoing pandemic, weird weather and - in the U.S. - an election, folks are getting overwhelmed. What struck me this week is that Watson could serve as the basis for a virtual assistant to attend meetings (particularly those that are overlapping), take notes, and help us focus on the items to which we need to pay attention.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 11, 2020
Microsoft has released 129 updates to its Windows ecosystem, but the good news this month is that we are not responding to any zero-days or publicly reported vulnerabilities. Microsoft appears to be getting serious about removing Adobe Flash Player (a good thing) and we see a very broad update to Windows desktops and servers. Unusually, Microsoft's browsers are not a huge focus this month, and both the Microsoft Office (excluding SharePoint) and development platform have received only a few, lower profile patches.
[ Related: Microsoft revamps Windows Insider release vernacular ]
We have included a helpful infographic, which this month looks a little lopsided as all of the attention should be on Windows components.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 11, 2020
Downloading a clean copy of Windows 10 version 2004 is remarkably easy, doesn't take very long (if you have a fast internet connection), and may well save your keester at some point. Don't worry, it's 100% legal and, at worst, will occupy about 8 GB on a convenient drive for a while.
Nothin' to it.
Step 1. In Windows 10, use the Media Creation Tool
If you have a PC with a license for Windows 10, the easiest way to get version 2004 involves Microsoft's Media Creation Tool. Go to the Download Windows 10 site and under "Create Windows 10 installation media," click the link marked Download tool now.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 11, 2020
Tech Events
Event
Description
Starts
Ends
Location
Oracle OpenWorld
Oracle's annual convention brings together IT management, business decision-makers and line-of-business end users. Typically, the conference includes keynotes from leadership at Oracle and from other partner organizations. More 2,500 additional sessions and workshops focus on other IT and business-related topics.
2020-09-21
2020-09-24
Las Vegas, NV PagerDuty Summit 2020 (Online only)
This event brings together companies like Google, IBM, Microsoft to discuss and explore significant trends in DevOps to help companies become more proactive and real-time organizations.
2020-09-21
2020-09-24
Online, Virtual Computex Taipei
Based in Asia, this massive technology trade show and expo focuses on information and communications technology, supply chain and IoT ecosystems.
2020-09-28
2020-09-30
Taipei, Taiwan MSPWorld 2020 (Online only)
MSPWorld offers a vendor-agnostic focus on Managed Service providers a
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Sep 11, 2020
While it's widely known that Apple is enjoying growing use across the enterprise, it's also true that employee choice means most businesses must support multiple platforms. Now a new solution promises to make that task a little easier.
Managing hybrid environments with Azure
Jamf is currently previewing its new iOS Device Compliance solution and expects to introduce it later this year. What does it do?
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 11, 2020
While it's widely known that Apple is enjoying growing use across the enterprise, it's also true that employee choice means most businesses must support multiple platforms. A new solution promises to make that task a little easier.
Managing hybrid environments with Azure
Jamf is currently previewing its new iOS Device Compliance solution and expects to introduce it later this year. What does it do?
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 11, 2020
What a long, strange trip it's been.
From its inaugural release to today, Android has transformed visually, conceptually and functionally — time and time again. Google's mobile operating system may have started out scrappy, but holy moly, has it ever evolved.
Here's a fast-paced tour of Android version highlights from the platform's birth to present. (Feel free to skip ahead if you just want to see what's new in Android 11.)
Android versions 1.0 to 1.1: The early days
Android made its official public debut in 2008 with Android 1.0 — a release so ancient it didn't even have a cute codename.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 11, 2020
At this government-connected facility, all software development needs a final approval from upper management before it goes into production, says a pilot fish working there.
"The approval meetings involve a short presentation of the software, what has changed from the previous version and what bugs have been fixed," says fish. "If upper management agrees, it's approved and released and we go back to work on the next release.
"We only submitted bug reports for bona fide bugs that needed to be tracked for fixing, not for all code changes. If the change was an improvement, it went on our list of improvements for the future. If someone checked in a version with a missing comma, we just made the change to fix it."
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 10, 2020
Apple's September event may look a bit different this year, but the (virtual) show will still go on. Expect to see the new Apple Watch Series 6 and updated iPad Air at the September 15 "Time Flies" event. Rumors suggest that Apple will not announce the upcoming 5G iPhone 12 at this event and opt for an event later this fall. Computerworld executive editor Ken Mingis and Macworld senior writer Michael Simon join Juliet to discuss why Apple may host multiple events this fall and what product launches to expect when.
Check out Mike's latest article about the September 15th event: https://www.macworld.com/article/3574449/if-new-iphones-arent-coming-at-the-annual-iphone-event-what-will-apple-release.html
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 10, 2020
Android 11 has officially landed — although for most phone-carrying mammals in the world, its arrival is still mostly just theoretical.
You know how this works by now, right? Google announces a fancy new Android version. It sends the software out to its own self-made Pixel phones more or less immediately. With the occasional small exception, most other Android device-makers yawn, stretch, and go about their regular business without so much as even acknowledging the new release or making a peep about their plans to provide it — and then, somewhere between a few months and a few hundred days later, they finally get around to processing the thing and getting it into the hands of their highest-paying customers.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 10, 2020
Someday, you'll tell your grandkids about the halcyon days of July and August 2020, when Microsoft took pity on us poor patching souls and introduced few bugs in its stew of Patch Tuesday patches.
Now, it looks like we're well on our way to another mess.
[ Related: Microsoft makes 'major-minor' Windows 10 release cadence the new normal ]
Although it's still too early to throw up your hands and peremptorily pass on the September crop, I assure you that there is no joy in Patchville.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 10, 2020
Soon, you'll be able to run not just Chrome OS, Android, and Linux on your Chromebook but Windows applications as well. Here's how and what that will mean for your company's PCs and laptops.
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Sep 10, 2020
Google's Chrome OS platform sure isn't what it used to be.
The software that started out as a strictly web-centric entity — with everything revolving around the Chrome browser and apps that could operate inside it — has evolved into one of modern computing's most versatile operating systems. Contemporary Chromebooks still run all the standard web-based stuff, of course, but they're also capable of connecting to Google's entire Play Store and running almost any Android app imaginable. On the enterprise front, some Chromebooks will soon be able to support Windows apps. And if all of that isn't enough, many models now have the ability to run Linux apps as well.
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Sep 09, 2020
Microsoft has launched a public preview of "Microsoft Defender Application Guard for Office," a defensive technology that quarantines untrusted Office documents so that attack code carried by malicious files can't reach the operating system or its applications.
On Monday, a senior cybersecurity engineer with the Redmond, Wash. company explained how Application Guard for Office worked and more importantly, walked customers through its operationm - something that existing documentation omitted when the public preview was launched late last month.
[ Related: 10 productivity-boosting apps for Microsoft Teams ]
"Microsoft Office will open files from potentially unsafe locations in?Microsoft Defender Application Guard, a secure container, that is isolated from the device through hardware-based virtualization," John Barbare wrote in a post to a Microsoft blog. "When Microsoft Office opens files in Microsoft Defender Application Guard, a user can then securely read,?edit,?print, and?save?the files without having to re-open files outside of the container."
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Sep 09, 2020
Decoding the latest Apple announcement, it seems the Apple Watch may soon graduate from its status as a subordinate accessory for iPhones into a full weight product family in its own right. Why do I think this:
The iPhone event that wasn't
When Apple told the world it will hold an event on September 15, industry watchers were confused. They'd heard that the new iPhones may be delayed until October or beyond, while industry insiders such as Jon Prosser, Mark Gurman and many others were telling us that the event won't see an iPhone 12 launch, but will instead see the debut of the Apple Watch Series 6 and iPad Air 4 (the watch seemingly confirmed by stray code on the Apple YouTube page).
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Sep 09, 2020
It's here! After months of testing and more than a little teasing, Google officially took the wraps off its beefy Android 11 update on Tuesday. The software is already rolling out to Google's own Pixel phones, as you'd expect, and should be making its way to more devices before long.
You've probably heard plenty about Android 11's most important additions and even its hidden gems by now — and if not, by golly, the ever-so-subtly included links in the first part of this sentence will get you caught up in no time. (Funny how that works, isn't it?) Now, though, it's time to turn our attention to some purely practical matters and think through specific steps you should take in order to make the most of what Android 11 has to offer.
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Sep 09, 2020
Flashback a few years to when this support pilot fish gets a frantic call from a marketing guy at a trade show.
"He was setting up a graphics terminal to demo his stuff," says fish. "The show started in a couple of hours and he couldn't get the terminal to talk to our service.
"After discussing the problem with him, it turned out he didn't know that he had to plug the serial cable from the modem into the back of the terminal. When he said to me, ‘What's that?' I knew I was going to have to do a lot of hand-holding."
But the marketing guy follows fish's instructions, and soon the big terminal is working fine. Marketing guy thanks fish, and then gets back to the job of collecting more customers.
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Sep 08, 2020
Apple has announced the date of its next event, which will be streamed globally from Apple Park on Sept. 15, starting at 10 a.m. PT/ 1 p.m. ET.
What will Apple introduce?
As of now, there's a great deal of expectation surrounding this event. Will Apple use the moment to introduce the many products it has been expected to reveal this fall, or will the show be a prelude to a second "Special Event"?
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Sep 08, 2020
Apple has announced the date of its next event, which will be streamed globally from Apple Park on September 15, starting at 10am PDT.
What will Apple introduce?
At time of writing there's a great deal of expectation concerning this event. Will Apple use the moment to introduce the many products that it has been expected to this fall, or will the show be a prelude to a second "Special Event"?
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 08, 2020
Last year marked a slight decrease in global technology M&A activity from the blockbuster year that was 2018 - when SAP bought Qualtrics for $8 billion, IBM acquired Red Hat for a staggering $33 billion and Broadcom picked up CA Technologies for $18.9 billion in cash.
As of the end of Q3 2019, technology M&A deals worth $245 billion had been announced globally, marking a decrease of 25% year-on-year according to GlobalData.
Which mergers and acquisitions does 2020 have in store? If January alone is anything to go by, there will be no slowing of major deals across the industry, with security already proving to be a hot area.
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Sep 08, 2020
The U.S. mobile worker population is set to jump from 78.5 million to 93.5 million by 2024, according to IDC, as businesses digitize processes and support larger remote workforces. The move to a more mobile workforce has implications for IT spending, business processes and the ability to maintain efficiencies outside the office.
In general, IDC expects the number of mobile workers to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4% over five years - outpacing the overall workforce growth in the U.S. over the same period. Mobile workers will account for almost 60% of the entire U.S. workforce by the end of the 2024, the research firm said, with businesses expected to spend around a third (32%) of their overall IT budgets on mobile hardware, software and services.
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Sep 08, 2020
This pilot fish runs the night support shift, and fairly regularly they have to call a particular DBA when they're stumped. He is just that good you could be sure he'd have the answer.
But when he answered the phone, he would cuss and yell, smear the caller with every name in the book, and then hang up. Within five minutes, he would call back on the manager hotline and say, "This is Barney. I am awake now. How can I help you?" Friendly as that dinosaur of the same name.
According to Barney's wife, he was just the same when she woke him suddenly — nastier than a hungry T-rex.
Wishing to bypass the ugly Barney and get to the helpful, friendly one right away, they get him a pager, which he puts next to his pillow. When it buzzes, he can vent his five minutes of bile with no one to hear it. Then he calls in and fixes whatever the problem is.
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Sep 07, 2020
Although the U.S. IT and telecommunications job market is still expected to shrink by 64,000 jobs in 2020 versus 2019, the worst may be over - and about a third of the IT jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to have come back by 2021. That's according to the most recent survey of IT executives by management consultancy Janco Associates.
For the first time in six months, August saw a net gain in the number of IT jobs: up 6,900. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised the number of IT jobs lost in July, showing 4,400 fewer jobs were lost than originally reported. Still, over the last 12 months, IT jobs fell by 81,800, nearly erasing the 90,200 jobs gained in 2019.
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Sep 07, 2020
Every month we see the same pattern: Microsoft releases its Patch Tuesday regimen; the blogosphere flies into a frenzy about security holes that have to be patched right this minute; some patches have bugs; Microsoft fixes many of them in a week or two, warns about others, and stays mum on far too many.
Normal Windows users are left in the lurch. On the one hand, you have the threat of imminent malware mayhem. On the other, you have the threat of poorly tested patches. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
[ Related: Windows 10 version 2004: Key enterprise features ]
It's been like that for years. Don't believe it? Computerworld has month-by-month details for the past three years here.
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Sep 07, 2020
Every month we see the same pattern: Microsoft releases its Patch Tuesday regimen; the blogosphere flies into a frenzy about security holes that have to be patched right this minute; some patches have bugs; Microsoft fixes many of them in a week or two, warns about others, and stays mum on far too many.
Normal Windows users are left in the lurch. On the one hand, you have the threat of imminent malware mayhem. On the other, you have the threat of poorly tested patches. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
[ Related: Windows 10 version 2004: Key enterprise features ]
It's been like that for years. Don't believe it? Computerworld has month-by-month details for the past three years here.
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Sep 07, 2020
Apple Watch hosts several tools to help you get things done. What follows is a short collection of them and how to set them up to be most useful.
Reminders on Apple Watch
I use Reminders on my Apple Watch for almost everything - from cooking times to project deadlines to scheduling calls. All it takes is one push on the Digital Crown to summon Siri, and I can then speak the request: "Remind me to attend the group Zoom meeting Friday," for example, or "Hey Siri, set a timer for two hours," to help you focus.
What's great about this is that once you set the Reminder you don't need to think about it again. The limitation is that you will only receive one reminder notification at the time you set, but you can change this on your iPhone.
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Sep 07, 2020
Chrome looms over the browser landscape like a leviathan.
With more than 70% of the world's browser user share - a measure of browser activity calculated by analytics company Net Applications - Google's Chrome has crushed the competition. Rivals, from Microsoft's Edge to Mozilla's Firefox, survive on single-digit shares that seem liable to evaporate on short notice.
So, it's no surprise that when Chrome moves, others feel the tremors. With each upgrade - something Computerworld tracks in the What's in the latest Chrome update? series - and every time Google talks of future plans, opponents pay attention to hear what they may have to copy to stay competitive.
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Sep 07, 2020
User complains that her PC has no network connectivity, so this help desk pilot fish gives her a call to do basic troubleshooting before making a desk-side visit.
"I describe the network cable to her and ask her to confirm that it's connected firmly on both ends," says fish. "Check. I ask her to restart her computer. She does. The problem persists."
So fish starts trying to determine whether the problem is with all network functions, or only some. Can she use the web? "No," user says. OK, can you send or receive email? "Oh, yes, no problems there," she says.
Ah, fish says, so it's only some network functions that are having problems? Some things aren't working, but email is?
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Sep 04, 2020
It looks like we're good to go with Microsoft's August Windows and Office patches. The second cumulative update for Windows 8.1, KB 4578013, throws some Virtual Private Networks out of kilter, and the Win7 patches may knock out your printers (for those of you paying for Win7 Extended Security Updates). But most of the other bugs appear to be squashed.
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Sep 04, 2020
Apple has once again responded to critics with the publication of a human rights policy it says commits the company to "freedom of information and expression."
Freedom of expression
"At Apple, we are optimistic about technology's awesome potential for good," says CEO Tim Cook. "But we know that it won't happen on its own. Every day, we work to infuse the devices we make with the humanity that makes us."
However, the document also points out that Apple is required to obey the law.
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Sep 04, 2020
Editor's note: Microsoft is a client of the author.
Last week, I had an interesting chat with Israel Sumano, senior director of infrastruture services at Southland Industries. He has around 450 engineers using Workspot's cloud desktop solution running on Microsoft Azure. Most of these people are using old desktops, but he has been using an S20 Ultra to host his desktop. That's why I wanted to talk to him.
I know a bit about Workstation users: they demand - and typically get - the hardware they want, and Workstations tend to be several times more expensive than PCs. So the idea of putting a firm's engineering staff onto what amounts to a thin-client solution shouldn't work. But the plan is to put these engineers on Microsoft's new Duo, which is the first Smartphone in some time (other than a BlackBerry) with a serious business focus.
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Sep 04, 2020
It's the mid-1970s, and this programmer pilot fish works for an IT service provider that supports several big insurance companies.
"We ran a huge (at that time) mainframe and a nationwide network and, of course, a large computer room," says fish.
One winter night, fish is there working on a new program. There's a blizzard outside, so when the mainframe operator has finished running the nightly batch, fish tells him to go home, figuring he knows enough to compile his code.
But not long after, while fish is waiting for a compile to finish, all the lights freeze on the teletype-style console and it stops printing.
That's a problem. It's 3 a.m. in the middle of a blizzard, the system won't work without a console, and fish knows everything has to be up and running in a few hours. He puts in a service call.
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Sep 03, 2020
Google's Chrome OS platform is a lot of different things. It's a simple place for web-centric computing. It's a natural extension of Android and the future of the "Android tablet." It's a place to run Linux apps — and soon, if you're in the right enterprise environment, a place to run Windows apps, too (!).
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Sep 03, 2020
We all think Apple will introduce 5G support in the next-generation iPhone, but it looks seriously as if it has a wider plan to turn the mass market on to the mobile broadband standard.
Apple's services are built for mobile
Apple has been heavily focused on building out its services in recent years, and there's a great deal of activity going on in this space:
Apple TV : This service continues to generate attention as high profile A-listers sign up to work with Apple on future shows.
Apple Music: The company recently added two new radio channels, dropped the Beats name and continues to build out and add content to its music streaming service. iOS 14 adds integration with Snapchat, improved search and a few other features.
Apple Arcade: While Arcade still seems to be short of a hit game, recent bad blood between Apple and Epic suggests a wider competitive rift. Given Apple's focus on Metal and ARKit, does the company intend publishing a range of AR titles that compete?
Apple News: The company continues to woo users with cut price deals and partnerships, though publishers seem disappointed at the revenues raised.
What's most notable in recent days as we head toward the inexorable online iPhone 12 range announcement is the emergence of new deal packages from Apple and selected
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Sep 03, 2020
Low code and no code platforms are valuable IT tools. They make it easy for employees outside of the IT team to develop apps that simplify business processes. And in some cases, they can aid in the transition from amateur developer or Excel power user to professional programmer. InfoWorld senior writer Serdar Yegulalp joins Juliet to discuss how employees interested in development can use low code platforms to learn basic skills before jumping into code.
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Sep 03, 2020
Windows 10 rediscovered its appetite for share last month as it grew to represent almost 70% of all instances of Microsoft's OS.
According to U.S. metrics vendor Net Applications, Windows 10 grew by 1.2 percentage points to reach 60.6% of global operating system share in August, accounting for 69.6% of all Windows editions. As usual, the second number is the more important of the two; August's was 1.4 points higher than July's.
[ Related: Microsoft revamps Windows Insider release vernacular ]
Windows 10's percentage of only Windows PCs (that's the 69.6%) was larger than the percentage of all personal computers (the 60.6%), because Windows does not power every system. In August, Windows was the OS of slightly fewer than 87% of the world's personal computers, down just half of one-tenth of a point from July. Of the remaining 13%, all but four-tenths of a percentage point ran macOS, Linux or Chrome OS.
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Sep 02, 2020
Enterprises worldwide have upgraded employees with Apple solutions to support remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jamf CEO Dean Hager confirmed during his company's first post-IPO fiscal call.
Apple in the enterprise hits rapid growth
The deployment of Apple in the enterprise appears to be accelerating.
"Our business predominantly grows through the enterprise and education acceptance of using Apple products at school or work," Hager said. "And that acceptance within the enterprise is actually outpacing even the device growth that you see," he added.
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Sep 02, 2020
Pilot fish is assigned to write a program to handle call center requests — everything from service scheduling and machine tracking to engineering change requests and design issues.
"Doing my best due diligence, I went from one department head to the next, pen and paper in hand, and asked each one for specific ideas of what they wanted," says fish. "Each of them responded the same: ‘I don't know. Put something together and then we'll tweak it.'"
Undaunted, fish goes to potential users in each department, asking for input. But it's the same story: "Put something together and we'll figure it out from there."
Fish thinks long and hard — how can he write this with no input? But he gets a devilish idea and soon tells all the department heads and the company president to assemble for a demonstration in a meeting room. He has second thoughts when the president actually shows up, but it's too late to change course.
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Sep 01, 2020
Mozilla's Firefox slumped, Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) crashed, and even Google's Chrome dropped last month in the global struggle for market share.
August was as unkind to browsers as the year has been to their users.
According to data published yesterday by California-based analytics company Net Applications, Firefox's share fell by two-tenths of a percentage point, ending August at 7.1%, a record low in its years-long decline. The last time the browser held such a small share was more than 15 years ago, in March 2005, as it was building to be a legitimate alternate to the then-monarch IE.
By Net Applications' measurements, Firefox lost the equivalent of 2.2% of its share during August. Mozilla's own data — in the form of monthly average users, or MAU — also showed a decline for Firefox, albeit a smaller 1.3% downturn.
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Sep 01, 2020
Critics always mock this claim, but Apple listens to feedback from across its ecosystem, and a couple of recent developer relations changes suggest it is thinking to recent criticisms of its App Store policies.
An epic challenge
In just a few years, Tim Cook's Apple has managed to develop, build and evangelize a global mobile platform.
It is responsible for the hardware design, platform development and to maintain a framework for its own and third-party services while also ensuring its creations are capable of answering new demands as these emerge.
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Sep 01, 2020
It's 1984, and the small law firm where this basically non-techie pilot fish works has finally agreed to his suggestion to get computers and inkjet printers for all the secretaries.
Fish's stock rises when productivity soars, so he doesn't mind that he'll be in charge of fixing any of the machines that start to act up.
And the computers do have their moments and require constant hardware and software tinkering. Fortunately, the printers never fail. In fact, things are going pretty well, until one computer starts rebooting itself, for no apparent reason, several times a day, costing the secretary who uses it to lose all her work in progress.
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Sep 01, 2020
We're officially in the final countdown to the launch of Android 11, which is expected to arrive any week now — but forget the shiny new stuff for a second. I'd be willing to wager there are some worthwhile treats in the current Android version that you either overlooked entirely or maybe thought about for a few minutes and then forgot to keep using.
Any Android update has a lot to digest, after all, and it's all too easy to let certain things slip by. But Android 10's got some subtle gems that are well worth putting back on your radar and embracing. And whether you end up seeing Android 11 within days of its arrival or waiting an eternity for the update to reach your phone, reminding yourself to take advantage of these features will make your life easier — both now and into the future. (Yes, they're all still present in Android 11!)
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Aug 31, 2020
With Windows 10 2004 gradually creeping (I use the term intentionally) onto more machines, faults and foibles are coming out of the woodwork. It looks like a fix for the long-lamented version 2004 defrag bugs is on the way, but we aren't there yet. Lenovo isn't too happy with the August version 2004 cumulative update. It's still too early to move to 2004, in my opinion — and those problems ensure I'll keep 2004 off my machines for a while.
Meanwhile, Microsoft extended the end of support date for Win10 version 1803 — a move that'll interest exactly nobody except for admins with aging Win10 machines. Windows 8.1 patchers got left out in the Remote Access cold for a week. The .NET security updates have an odd, acknowledged bug with a manual registry workaround.
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Aug 31, 2020
Google last week released Chrome 85, boasting of several enhancements to the browser's tab-based user interface and a 10% reduction in page load times.
The Mountain View, Calif. company also paid out more than $10,000 in bounties to security researchers who reported some of the 20 vulnerabilities addressed in Chrome 85. Two of the bugs were marked "High," Google's second-most-serious threat level. One of those flaws, which Google said was in the iOS version of Chrome, was reported by a member of Microsoft's browser vulnerability research team. Microsoft now relies on the same core technologies — those produced by the Google-dominated Chromium project — for its Edge browser as Google does for Chrome.
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Aug 31, 2020
Microsoft's Windows operating system still dominates on computers, but Apple's macOS is in use by 17% of the global desktop computing population, according to StatCounter — and by 27% of U.S. computers, 29% of British computers, and 25% of Canadian computers. Businesses have long been even more Windows-centric, but macOS has found a place in several key segments: software development, creative and marketing work (such as image editing, video production, and layout), and website design and creation.
The Mac is a solid enterprise computer, despite the Windows bias prevalent in IT. And as more people work from home, the chances that an employee is using a Mac for business are now higher than ever.
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(Insider Story)
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Aug 31, 2020
Flashback to 1988, when this pilot fish's IT experience is limited to work at computer stores on standalone PCs. But then he's hired to work in a real data center — raised floor, glass walls and full of Wang minicomputers.
"I was given an introductory walkthrough by my boss, then shown to my cubicle just outside the glass wall and left there," says fish. "I was awestruck. A real computer, on a network!"
Fish reads through his employee welcome packet, then logs into his terminal for the first time. Up pops a menu of choices. Gingerly, fish begins exploring. One menu option is WSNSTART. Fish selects that and presses Enter.
Several screens flash by in quick succession, and then the main menu reappears.
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Aug 28, 2020
It's almost September, which means Apple's fall product launches are right around the corner. While there may not be a single big event this year, expect individual events around the release of the new 5G iPhone 12 and the first Apple Silicon Mac. Plus, be on the lookout for the refreshed iPad Air, new AirPods and the Apple Watch Series 6. Macworld senior writer Michael Simon and Computerworld executive editor Ken Mingis join Juliet to discuss this fall's biggest Apple announcements and when to expect them.
Check out last week's episode about the new 27-inch Mac: https://youtu.be/ZSPcvEpp6ho
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Aug 28, 2020
With speculation Apple intends creating its own Google replacing search engine, it seemed a good time to share a few of the more powerful things Spotlight can already do for you on both Mac and iOS devices.
Learn to make the most of Spotlight
Command-Space to invoke Spotlight is the single most useful command on your Mac. It can help you find almost anything on your Mac or online.
Want to open an app? Tap Command-Space and begin typing the app name until it appears, then press Return to launch the app. Want to open a document? Begin typing its name until you find it in the Documents view.
To select items in the dropdown list that you can see, just use the up/down arrows, and press Return when you want to open something. You can also use it to get to System Preferences. I find this approach faster than using Siri, but each to their own. You'll find lots more useful Spotlight search tips here.
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Aug 28, 2020
Want Windows 10 to run faster? We've got help. In just a few minutes you can try out this baker's dozen of tips; your machine will be zippier and less prone to performance and system issues.
1. Change your power settings
If you're using Windows 10's "Power saver" plan, you're slowing down your PC. That plan reduces your PC's performance in order to save energy. (Even desktop PCs typically have a "Power saver" plan.) Changing your power plan from "Power saver" to "High performance" or "Balanced" will give you an instant performance boost.
To do it, launch the Control Panel app, then select Hardware and Sound Power Options. You'll typically see two options: "Balanced (recommended)" and "Power saver." (Depending on your make and model, you might see other plans here as well, including some branded by the manufacturer.) To see the "High performance" setting, click the down arrow by "Show additional plans."
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Aug 28, 2020
Stymied by a fiber line that's overloaded with traffic from just too many users, this pilot fish finally gets approval to trench and pull new cable.
"The day we changed the line from 100 Mbit/sec to 1 GB/sec, I confirmed with our clerks their increased speed and functionality."
The clerks tell fish that they had timed a save with a stopwatch that took a minute and a half. So they try that save now and find it to takes about three seconds.
But, says fish, "Immediately one turned to me and said, ‘Can you make it faster?'"
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Aug 28, 2020
[ Related: Review: 5 top videoconferencing services put to the test ]
Disclosure: Microsoft and Lenovo are clients of the author
This week I got a briefing from Crestron about the company's various video conferencing offerings for home and business. I was struck by the fact that it, like Lenovo and Plantronics, is focused almost entirely on two collaboration products - Zoom, mostly in the public sector, and Microsoft Teams, which is mostly in the private sector.
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Aug 27, 2020
Psst: Come close. Your Android phone has a little-known superpower — a futuristic system for bridging the physical world around you and the digital universe on your device. It's one of Google's best kept secrets. And it can save you tons of time and effort.
It's a little somethin' called Google Lens, and it's been lurking around on Android and quietly getting more and more capable for years. Google curiously doesn't make a big deal about it, and you'd really have to go out of your way to even realize it exists. But once you uncover it, well, you'll feel like you have a magic wand in your pocket.
At its core, Google Lens is best described as a search engine for the real world. It uses artificial intelligence to identify text and objects both within images and in a live view from your phone's camera, and it then lets you learn about and interact with those elements in all sorts of interesting ways. But while Lens's ability to, say, identify a flower, look up a book, or give you info about a landmark is certainly impressive, it's the system's more mundane-seeming productivity powers that are far more likely to find a place in your daily life.
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Aug 27, 2020
Apple is introducing support for COVID-19 Exposure Notifications without downloading an app in iOS 13.7, but iPhone users remain in control.
Phase two of the Apple/Google contact tracing plan
Apple is currently beta testing its iOS 13.7 update among developers. The main addition to the new app is the expansion of the COVID-19 Exposure Notification API.
Apple says this will let iPhone users opt-in to receive Exposure Notifications without the need to download an app from your local public health authority.
When Apple and Google jointly announced the move to introduce contact tracing tools within their operating systems they committed to enabling a Bluetooth-based contact tracing platform by building this functionality into the underlying platforms.
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Aug 27, 2020
One of the best ways to get engagement on your intranet sites is to bring in a relevant Yammer community to SharePoint using Yammer Conversations. Instead of creating a destination to ask a question, this allows you to bring Yammer directly into your intranet and engage your users where they are.
[ Related: Microsoft cheat sheets: Dive into Windows and Office apps ]
But what about when you are in Yammer? The SharePoint site associated with a Yammer community is a team site that is independent from the communication sites on your intranet. You can bring Yammer into the intranet, but can you bring the intranet into Yammer?
To read this article in full, please click here
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Aug 27, 2020
Hey, thanks for your email. Let's find a time to meet.
Great to hear from you. We'd love to chat. Please follow up with Pat (cc'd here) to set up an interview.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. This isn't something we can pursue right now, but I appreciate the interest. (Also, I'd appreciate a sandwich.)
Do any of these responses ring a bell? The specifics may vary (especially, uh, on that last one), but we've all got our standard stock statements we send out time and time again via email — and if you were to add up all the time spent typing those sentences out, well, you could probably add an extra week of vacation onto your work year.
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Aug 26, 2020
Microsoft on Wednesday stretched support for a third version of Windows 10, again citing the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on business.
The Redmond, Wash. developer extended security support for Windows 10 Enterprise 1803 and Windows 10 Education 1803 by six months, to May 11, 2021. The original end-of-support date was to be Nov. 10.
[ Related: Microsoft makes 'major-minor' Windows 10 release cadence the new normal ]
"We have heard your feedback and understand your need to focus on business continuity in the midst of the global pandemic," Chris Morrissey, who leads the communications team for Windows' servicing group, wrote in a post to a company blog. "As a result, we have decided to delay the scheduled end-of-service date for the Enterprise, Education, and IoT Enterprise editions of Windows 10, version 1803."
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Aug 26, 2020
Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscribers always have the latest version of Microsoft Office — currently Office 2019. They also get more frequent software updates than those who have purchased Office 2019 without a subscription, which means subscribers have access to the latest features, security patches and bug fixes. But it can be hard to keep track of the changes in each update and know when they're available. We're doing this for you, so you don't have to.
Following are summaries of the updates to Office 365/Microsoft 365 for Windows, with the latest releases shown first. We'll add info about new updates as they're rolled out.
Note: This story covers updates released to regular Office 365/Microsoft 365 for Windows subscribers. If you're a member of Microsoft's Office Insider preview program or want to get a sneak peek at upcoming features, see the company's "Release notes for Office for Windows Desktop (Beta builds)" page.
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Aug 26, 2020
Microsoft never sleeps. Even before Microsoft made the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (version 2004) generally available to users, the company began working on upcoming feature updates to Windows 10. As it did with version 2004, Microsoft has been releasing a series of public preview builds to members of Microsoft's Windows Insider Program.
After years of using "Redstone" in its code names for upcoming releases, Microsoft switched to a new format with version 1903, released in May 2019. The code names now use a YYH1/YYH2 format, with the YY standing for the last two numbers of the year and H1 or H2 referring to the first or second half of the year. So Windows 10 version 2004, which was released in May 2020, was code-named "20H1" (for first half of 2020). The next feature update, due in the fall of 2020, is code-named 20H2.
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Aug 26, 2020
For a company whose future depends on attracting more users to its primary product, Mozilla has taken a lackadaisical approach to boosting Firefox's features and functionality over the last four upgrades.
On Tuesday, Mozilla released Firefox 80, the fourth upgrade in a row to lack compelling new features visible to end users.
At the same time, Mozilla engineers patched 10 security vulnerabilities, including three rated as "high," the organization's second-most-serious threat ranking.
Firefox 80 can be downloaded for Windows, macOS and Linux from Mozilla's site. Because Firefox updates in the background, most users receive the latest version when they relaunch the browser. To manually update on Windows, pull up the menu under the three horizontal bars at the upper right, then click the help icon (the question mark within a circle). Choose "About Firefox." (On macOS, "About Firefox" can be found under the "Firefox" menu.) The resulting page shows that the browser is either up to date or displays the in-process refresh.
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Aug 26, 2020
Driven by Siri and voice first, local search is becoming increasingly important for business. Now Apple is finally preparing to introduce new features inside iOS 14's Maps app that promise to boost the importance of putting your enterprise on the local map.
Photos and reviews are coming
We've learned that iOS 14 contains two key enhancements that raise the bar for Maps:
User submitted reviews, including a thumbs up/down button.
User submitted images.
The implications for beautiful outdoor locations and places of interest is evident. In theory, you'll be able to use Apple's Look Around feature to check how these places look from the high street, and then explore them more deeply by exploring user submitted images.
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Aug 26, 2020
Mural takes a visual approach to collaboration, with a focus on "imagination" rather than knowledge work. To do this it relies on a digital whiteboard canvas that allows colleagues and clients to share ideas and brainstorming, even when they're remote.
It's an approach that has led to swift growth for the company, which launched its app in 2011 and counts IBM - with tens of thousands of users - among its largest customers. Buoyed by the increase in remote working during the pandemic, the Buenos Aires and San Francisco-based Mural added more than a million active users during the second quarter of the year, and tripled its revenue.
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(Insider Story)
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Aug 26, 2020
Almost as soon as this specialized software vendor ships a custom application to a big new customer, someone notices a single line in the requirements document, reports a pilot fish there: The application shall support pooling. "Pooling is an in-house methodology where related items can be aggregated if desired," fish says.
"The user-interface developer had written about 40 complex queries and embedded them in his client-side application code — all without the pooling concept."
Oops.
Vendor's VP of development calls together the team. We have to fix this and get an updated version to the customer right away, before they implement the one they've got, he tells the group.
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Aug 25, 2020
The nonprofit /dev/color, an organization of Black software engineers, is seeking candidates for its 2021 A* Program, a year-long leadership development program for those seeking to be tech industry leaders. /dev/color cites the program's curated programming, peer-to-peer exchange model and access to resources designed to promote professional growth.
"Members set ambitious career goals that they track via a career roadmap and receive the support of fellow members (insights, networks, accountability, perspective) to achieve them. The program is effective because the entire community is invested in the collective success and progress of all members," according to Alex Okafor, the organization's marketing and communications manager.
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Aug 25, 2020
Well, hell. Google got me. Again.
You'd think I'd be used to the company's habit of announcing things before they're actually available by now, but nope — this past week, I fell for one of Google's classic traps.
The company put out a splashy announcement on Tuesday about a new Assistant feature, y'see. It lets you send an audio message to anyone simply by talking to your phone. You just say, "Hey Google, send an audio message," and poof! Just like that, your phone starts recording and then sends your spoken missive to whomever you want. Magical! Spiffy! Exciting! I couldn't wait to try it! And then, well...
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Aug 25, 2020
A year ago, an outage like the one Zoom experienced Monday would have largely gone-unnoticed. The now-popular video conferencing platform had yet to become a mainstay of work-from-home employees forced out of the office by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the three-hour outage this week that took the company's meeting and webinar services offline highlights the fact that enterprise tech outages no longer just affect white-collar workers.
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