Microsoft Project GigJam humanizes business collaboration, delegation, and tracking

gigjam

The future of business -- and for some, the present -- is a world without barriers. Gone is the anger-inducing commute and soul-sucking cubicles. Working from home, the coffee shop, or even the beach from the device of your choice is a real possibility.

The problem, however, is a lack of easy to use collaboration, delegation and tracking tools. Not to mention the overwhelming number of in-use programs -- and devices -- that do not communicate with each other. Simply sharing a screen with remote users and dialing into a conference line is a recipe for boredom and failure. There needs to be a better way. Microsoft is hoping its new solution Project GigJam -- announced today at the 2015 Worldwide Partner Conference -- is that way.

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RIP Nintendo's Satoru Iwata, the video game president who was actually a gamer

satoru iwata

The world of video games is mourning a huge loss this morning with 55-year-old Nintendo president Satoru Iwata having passed away as the result of a bile duct tumor. While the lasting impact and legacy of Iwata's influence on Nintendo will be thoroughly debated and analyzed, one thing that has no dispute is that Iwata was the rare senior executive in a powerful video game company who was actually a true gamer through and through.

The CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, the entity in charge of all things PlayStation, is Andrew House. While House has a storied history within Sony's video game division, his entire career has been spent in advertising and communications.

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77 percent of people are open to using password alternatives

Password key image

The username and password combination has been with us for a long time, but we're increasingly seeing its shortcomings for protecting sensitive data.

A new survey of 24,000 consumers across six continents by technology services and consulting company Accenture reveals that 60 percent of consumers find passwords cumbersome and more than three-quarters worldwide would be open to using alternatives.

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Colasoft Capsa Free is a comprehensive network analyzer

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Colasoft Capsa 8 Free is a powerful tool for monitoring and analyzing network traffic, the free version of an enterprise package normally costing from $695.

The program has a vast and lengthy list of features, yet it’s also accessible to regular users. Just choosing an adapter and clicking "Start" gets you an attractive dashboard, with graphs showing network utilization, traffic, and top traffic by protocol and domain (keep in mind that Wi-Fi devices can’t be monitored in the free edition).

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Android users know about vulnerabilities but aren't taking precautions

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Although the majority of consumers are well aware of potential malware attacks on the Android platform, and they overwhelmingly understand the importance of mobile security, they're still not taking the steps needed to safeguard their devices and they’re reluctant to pay for protection.

This is among the findings of a new survey of more than 100 Android users from Chinese company 360 Security. It shows that Android mobile users worry most about untrustworthy apps (27 percent), online payments (20 percent), and hackers (13 percent).

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Microsoft reveals its Windows 10 launch celebration plans

party dog

While there’s no guarantee you’ll get Windows 10 on July 29, that’s the official launch date for the new OS. To celebrate the rollout, Microsoft is planning "global fan celebrations, joint efforts with thousands of retailers, including Microsoft store locations, a new global advertising campaign, and a new year-long initiative to celebrate people and organizations making a difference around the world". What no cake?

"Windows 10 was built to empower people to do great things. We are thrilled to celebrate the launch of Windows 10 with our fans," says Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of Windows and Devices Marketing at Microsoft. "We’ll mark the launch of Windows 10 by celebrating the people and organizations that upgrade the world every day -- and by helping them do more in their communities".

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A VMI strategy is the optimum solution for BYOD adopters

Business mobile devices

In the BYOD era, enterprises are searching for the optimum mobile work environment -- one that will strike the right balance between security and user needs.

The enterprise’s goal is to achieve the highest level of security. Employees, on the other hand, want the simple, fun user experience they get as consumers. A Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI) strategy can be the ideal solution.

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bstrings searches files for URLs, email addresses, more

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Bstrings is an open source console-based tool for Windows Vista and later which makes it easy to search files for important strings: URLs, email, IP or MAC addresses, UNC paths, GUIDs, credit card numbers, US phone numbers, zip codes and more.

Basic operations are much like many similar tools. Point the program at a file -- bstrings -f file.exe -- and it’ll list any ASCII and Unicode strings for you.

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How malware and gaming have grown up in parallel

Gaming virus

Since the advent of personal computing, games and malware have developed more or less side by side. Today the world of gaming has become intertwined with malware as cyber criminals have turned game theft into something much more lucrative.

The digital world, as we know it today, can be a dangerous place, to bring these issues to light anti-malware company Webroot has teamed up with the new movie PIXELS, released on July 24, to issue an infographic on the history of malware and gaming.

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How to change Windows 10's title bar color

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Windows 10 introduces a lot of changes. If you're upgrading from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 (or even from XP or Vista), you're going to find a lot that's new. But in addition to new features, settings, and options, some things have also vanished.

One casualty of upgrading to Windows 10 is the ability to customize the color of title bars. This incredibly simple option has been around for as long as Windows itself, but now it has been sacrificed. That is, unless you are willing to jump through a few hoops. Here's how to change the color of title bars in Windows 10.

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Over a quarter of IT workers believe Terminator's Skynet will happen one day

terminator

According to a recent YouGov poll, 13 percent of IT decision makers believe technology could destroy the Earth, with the leading causes of our demise including the prevention of evolution (74 percent), military and warfare (66 percent), artificial intelligence (44 percent), and environmental issues (38 percent).

And 27 percent of those polled believe the Terminator plot and Skynet (which deploys the army of Terminators against us) could become a reality in the future.

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Apple Watch is too expensive for most consumers

Apple Watch Sport on wrist

One in ten US broadband households plan to buy a smartwatch in 2015, however, 84 percent of them won’t spend over $250 on the device, according to recent wearable research.

The survey, from Parks Associates, suggests that the price point of $100 (£65) to $250 (£160) is roughly equivalent to a high-end fitness tracker.

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IoT Tech Expo arrives in London this December

Internet of Things IoT

The Internet of Things is definitely a technology that’s going to have a huge impact on our lives in years to come. According to IDC, the IoT market is set to be worth a staggering $1.7 trillion by 2020.

This December will see the launch of a new Internet of Things event designed to capitalize on this growing sector. The IoT Tech Expo Europe 2015 will be taking place at Olympia Central, London, on 2nd -- 3rd December, and is set to showcase the most cutting edge technologies from more than 100 exhibitors and 200 speakers.

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Second zero-day flaw found in Adobe Flash thanks to Hacking Team

Attack button

Earlier this week an exploit for Adobe Flash was revealed -- a shock, I know. Now a second is in the wild and already being used. Known by the catchy name CVE-2015-5122, security firm FireEye discovered the flaw buried in the Hacking Team leak and alerted Adobe to it.

Adobe has released a security bulletin stating "Critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2015-5122, CVE-2015-5123) have been identified in Adobe Flash Player 18.0.0.204 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Successful exploitation could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system".

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gImageReader extracts text from images, PDFs, more

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Extracting text from a PDF can be very easy. Just select a section and copy it to the clipboard, or maybe -- in Adobe Reader -- click File > Save As Other > Text to save the entire document.

This all works just fine, too, until you come across a PDF which is all images. And that’s when you need something a little more powerful.

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