Microsoft is in an apologetic mood right now -- what next? 'Sorry for Windows 10'?
Sorry may be the hardest word, but it seems to be tripping off Microsoft's tongue quite freely at the moment. Maybe it's the holiday season making the company look at itself, but we've had two apologies in recent days -- first, a semi-apology for stealing OneDrive storage from people, and now it's sorry about the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4.
Recognizing that many people's experiences with the latest addition to the Surface range has been "less-than-perfect", Microsoft's Josh_F has issued an apology on behalf of the company. Thanksgiving may be little more than a memory now, but Microsoft is thankful for the "open and candid feedback" (or bitching and complaining) about the latest Surface devices. With Microsoft in an apologetic mood, what else could it say sorry for?
Sarah Koenig's podcast comes to Sonos, this time featuring the story of Bowe Bergdahl
Sonos, the whole home audio system, is one the darlings of today's tech world, though it doesn't come at a cheap price. However, the device can pump out high-quality home audio throughout your dwelling and its offerings for content keep getting better.
Season two of Serial has just debuted and this season follows the story of Bowe Bergdahl, who people have mixed opinions of. If you aren't familiar with the story, Bergdahl was stationed in Afghanistan and left his post for, what he claims, was seeking help from superiors due to a lack of leadership in his platoon. There are many caveats and nuances to this tale, and listeners will form their own opinions about the events of that day.
Ford plans to make 40 percent of its cars electric by 2020
The green revolution has hit the auto industry and it has become time to adapt or move on. The company started by Henry Ford has always been near the front in innovation, especially under Alan Mulally. We've seen Ford Sync evolve into the platform it now is and the introduction of electric vehicles.
Now the company is laying out its plans for the next few years and a lot of that involves energy savings. The environment is in trouble and fossil fuels are part to blame.
Microsoft OneDrive is making it rain gigabytes -- here's how to score free cloud storage
Microsoft is doing some great things lately. Between Windows 10, Xbox One and its embrace of open source, you would think the company would be put on a pedestal by its users. Unfortunately, the company acted more like Scrooge than Santa Claus when it announced it was taking away cloud storage capacity from all of its users citing abuse by a few. Not cool.
Today, however, Microsoft is righting this wrong -- at least partially. While unlimited storage is still dead and buried, it is now possible to prevent the decrease from 15GB to 5GB. Shockingly, you can even keep your 15GB camera roll bonus too. How do you achieve this awesomeness? Just use the special link below.
The struggle to keep up with private cloud workload demands
Organizations are struggling with the ability to deliver infrastructure to end users to enable the demands of a DevOps environment.
Those are the results of a new global survey conducted by Qualisystems, provider of private/hybrid cloud orchestration software for DevOps and cloud sandboxing.
Data security is key for customer retention
Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of consumers worldwide say they are unlikely to shop or do business again with a company that had experienced a breach where financial information was stolen, and almost half (49 percent) had the same opinion when it came to data breaches where personal information was stolen.
This is according to a recent global survey by Gemalto, titled Broken Trust: 'Tis the Season to Be Wary, which surveyed 5,750 consumers in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and United States.
Crystal Security is a compact cloud-based malware detector
Install any anti-malware with real-time protection and you’re generally weighing down your system with services, drivers, DLLs, background processes and more.
Crystal Security does things differently, its tiny download unpacking to a single 830KB executable which runs happily on Windows XP and later.
How fast is Google's quantum computer compared to a PC?
Even Google’s artificial intelligence research labs can sometimes find that they just don’t have enough computing power available to them. This is despite Google owning powerful computers that just about any country in the world.
As a result of finding some problems in the AI field too difficult to solve using conventional computers, Google has turned its interest to quantum computers. These systems can solve problems that traditional PC computers just cannot handle. This is because quantum systems tap into the mystic world of quantum mechanics.
Yahoo Mail app adds support for Gmail, Google Apps accounts
If an email app doesn't support multiple providers, chances are lots of potential users will not bother with it. Or they will seek alternative offerings that do. So, unsurprisingly, major players like Microsoft and Google now welcome those who have embraced rival services to Outlook and Gmail, respectively, even though they would much rather prefer they switch to their own products.
Yahoo has followed suit, adding AOL Mail, Hotmail and Outlook.com to the list of email providers supported in its Yahoo Mail app for Android and iOS. But, as you can probably tell, there was one major service missing from the list -- Gmail. Now, there is an update that rectifies this.
Xbox Live certificate keys exposed according to Microsoft
A lot of Xbox customers shill out the extra money for a Live account to improve the gaming experience. With the vast amount of Xbox consoles out there, that is quite a few customers. Now Microsoft is acknowledging that the keys for some of those faithful users have been exposed.
Before you panic, this doesn't necessarily mean you've been hacked, but the possibility is there. In a new security bulletin the company claims that the SSL/TLS digital certificate keys for xboxlive.com were exposed and that this could be used by hackers for man-in-the-middle attacks.
The challenges of endpoint management in a hybrid environment [Q&A]
As the IT world is changing it's not uncommon for companies to be using a mix of cloud and on-premise solutions. These hybrid environments offer a best of both worlds option but do present problems when it comes to managing resources.
To find out how managers can address these challenges and what tools they can use to help, we spoke to Dana Epp, CTO of IT management specialist Kaseya.
Google adds data loss prevention tool to Gmail
Google is striving to improve the security protection for its business product Google for Work by introducing data loss prevention for its popular services such as Gmail.
DLP is an enterprise technology that aims to reduce the data leakage of confidential and valuable data from the business. The common ways that data leakage occurs is through emails and storing files to employee’s personal cloud storage services.
Listen up! Pandora arrives on the new Apple TV
The brand new Apple TV is now on the market, and it is receiving some attention. Capability is in the eye of the beholder, but of course, being Apple, it has its fans. This time around the platform has opened up a bit more and slipping in now is music darling Pandora.
The streaming service is announcing that it is now launching on the the new Apple TV. The service already supported many different devices, but this adds one more to the arsenal.
Griffin Survivor Play will protect your Apple TV Siri Remote while improving ergonomics
This year has been quite an Apple-themed affair for me. I bought the new iPad mini 4, iPhone 6s Plus and the newest Apple TV. While I love all three, the TV-connected box has been the most surprising. What do I mean by this? Well, while I expected it to be great, I didn't realize just how much fun it would be. Besides being a very capable media box, it is quite the enjoyable gaming console, and I adore the intuitive Siri Remote.
While the Siri Remote works well and feels pretty great in my hands, it is obviously fragile. If I was to fall asleep watching a movie or something, and it fell out of my bed onto the hardwood floor, I am not confident that it would survive. The glass trackpad would probably shatter. Today, however, Griffin announces the availability of the Survivor Play protective case for the Siri Remote. This inexpensive accessory will help prevent damage.
Google Wallet now lets you send money to anyone via text
The likes of PayPal have long made it possible to send money to friends, family, and businesses via email. The same is true of Google Wallet, but a new update means that an email address is no longer needed -- a text is all it takes.
If you have someone's mobile number, you have everything you need to send them money. Google assures payers that the SMS-based system is secure, but it remains to be seen how popular an option it proves to be.
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