How to enable and use Dolby Atmos surround sound in Windows 10

Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology from Dolby Laboratories. It debuted in 2012, and is designed to "pull you inside the action" with sound that moves around you in a three-dimensional space without being constrained to channels.

Microsoft supports Dolby Access in Windows 10 Creators Update, and enabling it and using it is straightforward, but there are some catches to be aware of.

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Russia tried to spy on Macron campaign using fake Facebook accounts

This is why you never accept Facebook friend requests from people you don't know, kids.

Reuters has reported that Russian agents created two dozen fake Facebook accounts to try and infiltrate and spy on campaign officials working for Emmanuel Macron during his presidential campaign.

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Ubuntu Linux 17.10 'Artful Aardvark' Alpha 2 is ready for testing

Ubuntu is one of the best Linux distributions around. What? You thought it became insanely popular by accident? Actually, its success is bred from being stable, easy to use, and having a really great community for beginners. Not to mention, it has many different "flavors" (desktop environments), allowing the user to find the best experience based on their preferences.

Today, the upcoming version of Ubuntu -- version 17.10 which is named named "Artful Aardvark" -- celebrates a new milestone. While not yet in beta status, it has reached the second alpha stage; the stable version is not due until October. While not all desktop environments are available at this point -- GNOME is absent, for instance -- there are several excellent options for testers, such as MATE, Budgie, and KDE.

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Twitter looks to boost profits with $99 per month automatic tweet promotion beta

When Twitter revealed its Q2 earnings yesterday the figures weren't quite as bright as people would have hoped. With growth stalling, the company is seeking new ways to bring in money, and its latest idea is a tweet promotion service for a fixed monthly fee.

Twitter is testing a new ad program which automatically promotes tweets and profiles for $99 per month. The program is currently in private beta, but it could be rolled out to a wider audience at any stage.

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Samsung Q2 2017 by the numbers: $54.8 bn revenue, $12.6 bn profit

Strong sales of its latest Galaxy S8 smartphone and increased demand for its memory have led Samsung to have a record second quarter.

The company released its financials for Q2 today and the company earned $54.8 billion total with $12.6 billion in profit. All of Samsung's products performed exceptionally well with its smartphone and memory divisions leading the charge.

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Apple kills iPod nano and shuffle, but makes touch more affordable

When every day you're looking at cool new gadgets that push the envelope it is easy to forget about relics like the iPod nano and the iPod shuffle. Apple has kept them alive alongside the iPhone for what seems like an eternity, even though they are pretty much pointless in this day and age.

But, hey, what better time to talk about the iPod nano and the iPod shuffle than the present, right? Sadly, the news isn't good for those of you who still want one, because Apple just announced that the iPod nano and the iPod shuffle are finally being put out to pasture.

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What is the best mobile network in the UK?

Mobile customers across the UK may find themselves struggling for a consistently reliable connection, according to new figures that show performance is split depending on which country you are in.

The latest research from Rootmetrics found that no one operator was able to provide a continually strong performance across the four nations, with EE, Vodafone and Three all claiming the top spot in different countries.

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Amazon Prime Day boosts other shopping apps

Amazon page

Amazon's Prime Day, although it's only been happening for three years, has already become a sort of Black Friday for the summer season. But a new report shows that it's having a positive benefit for other retailers too.

The study by mobile app marketing specialist Liftoff analyzed the install and purchase rates over a seven day period -- three days leading up to Prime Day, Prime Day itself, and the three days following. The company then compared 'Prime Week' to the previous six week period in order to establish benchmarks for shopping app install rates and purchase rates.

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How to stop videos autoplaying in Google

Google has been stirring things up a little recently, adding autoplaying videos to search results, and killing off Google Instant. The autoplaying videos are also something that Facebook has tinkered with recently, managing to irritate people in the process.

If you're searching Google on your phone, one of the last things you want is to have your battery draining unnecessarily because of videos playing automatically. Thankfully, you can disable this feature; here’s how.

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The future of enterprise flash storage [Q&A]

Storage interface

The all-flash storage market is predicted by Gartner to be worth $9 billion by 2020. But while flash offers speed advantages it's also expensive so it seems likely that the foreseeable future will see a mix of storage.

We spoke to Lazarus Vekiarides, CTO and co-founder of ClearSky Data, which offers enterprise storage, backup and DR as a fully managed hybrid cloud service, to find out more about flash storage and how best to exploit it.

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WikiLeaks reveals CIA's Imperial hacking project targeting Mac and Linux

WikiLeaks has published the latest of its Vault 7 CIA leaks, this time looking at a project going by the name Imperial. The project is made up of three tools: Achilles and SeaPea which target OS X, and Aeris which targets various flavors of Linux, including RedHat, Debian and CentOS.

User guides relating to the two Mac tools date from mid-2011 and show they can be used to Trojanize an OS X disk image or install a persistent rootkit. Aeris was designed to provide a backdoor into Linux-based systems.

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openSUSE Leap 42.3 Linux-based operating system is here -- download it now

Variety is both a gift and curse for Linux on the desktop. On the one hand, it is nice that there are so many operating systems based on the kernel from which to choose. On the other, it can sometimes feel like the community is very fragmented. Not only is there tribalism between users of distributions, but desktop environments too. For instance, there is Ubuntu vs. Fedora and KDE vs. GNOME -- much like Coke vs. Pepsi and Chevy vs. Ford. This is just human nature, I suppose.

With all of that said, popular Linux-based operating system, openSUSE Leap, has achieved a new point release. Version 42.3 is now available for download and it should be a good alternative to Microsoft's Windows 10. While it is fairly uneventful on the surface, that is arguably a good thing. You see, the distro focuses heavily on stability -- rather than being bleeding edge and sexy -- which many users wisely appreciate. There are many under-the-hood improvements, however.

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Intel discontinues Arduino 101 development board and Curie module

Intel logo building

Intel has revealed a significant scaling back in its hardware offerings.

The company has announced it will stop making its Arduino 101 board as well as the Curie module, both of which offered low-cost computing solutions.

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Evolving Application Performance Management (APM) to Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM)

Application Performance Management (APM) tools have traditionally provided organizations with key performance metrics, including the speed, reliability, and capacity utilization of datacenter systems. But without clear visibility into the actual experience of users, these metrics mean very little. Just because your servers measure as 100 percent available, doesn’t mean users in all geographies are having a fast, reliable experience.

That’s because there are many other performance-impacting elements standing between your datacenter and your users. If an IT organization can’t effectively monitor the true user experience -- including customers, employees, partners, and suppliers -- it is impossible to know if their applications are delivering sufficient performance. The damaging results include frustrated customers which can lead to churn, decreased revenue and market share, and diminished brand perception.

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Challenges faced in cloud technology adoption

The move to the cloud is something that has been high on the business agenda in recent years, but the complexity involved in moving has created significant stumbling blocks for organizations.

According to the CIF, 63 percent of businesses aim to move their entire IT infrastructure into the cloud eventually. Whilst RightScale says 95 percent of businesses use the cloud in some capacity, it’s proving difficult for organizations to move all of their applications and data into the cloud. In fact, Fuze revealed that only 10 percent of UK companies have moved entirely off site.

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