Zero trust has been one of the security buzz phrases of the past year and control of identity and credentials is likely to remain a focus for businesses and consumers alike, especially as the work from home trend looks set to continue.

Here's what some of the experts think the identity field holds for us in 2022.

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Open-source painting app Krita 5.0 has been released, almost four years since the 4.x branch first saw the light of day.

The cross-platform app, available for Windows, macOS and Linux, promises vastly improved performance, better gradients, a rewritten smudge brush engine and an overhauled animation system among other things.

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Cybercrime has increasingly become a feature of the modern world and its perpetrators are getting ever more professional.

But what can we expect to see next year in terms of the types of attack and how they're delivered? Here's what the experts think.

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Manufacturing and the science of materials are evolving quickly, so the rate of new products and product variations industrials put into the world is increasing. This evolution also means process parameters, which circumscribe the making of things, are proliferating. Meanwhile, the quality metrics of products and components have become more refined than ever before.

As a by-product, industrial equipment sensors generate an abundance and complexity of data far beyond the reach of statistical process control -- let alone human capacity. Semiconductor engineers, for example, must contend with petabytes of data daily. And they do so from wafers with chip architectures fabricated to accommodate hundreds of millions of transistors per square millimeter.

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The holiday season is a reminder that with more Americans than ever heading online to do their shopping, lawmakers must continue taking action to prevent consumers from falling prey to internet scammers. That’s why it was welcome news when Amazon recently reversed course on its longstanding opposition to bipartisan consumer protection legislation in Congress that would require third-party online marketplaces to verify independent sellers, with the goal of reducing counterfeits and stolen goods from these platforms.

But while Amazon’s public change of heart seemingly paves the way for the eventual passage of the bill, known as the INFORM Consumers Act, lawmakers must ensure that the retail giant and other tech companies do not work behind the scenes to water down the legislation and render it toothless. Counterfeits pose great harm to consumers and small third-party sellers, and Congress must pass strong, comprehensive enforcement mechanisms to adequately protect both groups.

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Artificial intelligence is making its presence felt in more and more areas of our lives. But what impact is it going to have on digital transformation projects, legislation and more?

Industry experts gave us their views.

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Christmas is just a few days away now, and I am definitely not in a great mood for the special holiday. Like many of you, I am depressed about this new Omicron variant of COVID-19 running rampant. Sadly, we all may have to lock ourselves down once again, staying in our homes while waving goodbye to visiting family and going to restaurants. This is not the Christmas I was envisioning just last week. Sigh.

Thankfully, there is a way to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ without leaving the house -- installing a Linux distribution! Look, I can't prove it, but I'd like to think Jesus would be a fan of both Linux and open source software. If he returned to Earth tomorrow, I think he would be more likely to use the Arch-based Manjaro than Windows 11. And so, if you are forced to stay indoors this Christmas weekend, I highly recommend trying out the all-new Manjaro 21.2 operating system.

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Even a year after the SolarWinds infiltration in late 2020, software supply chain risk continues to dominate the security conversation. Take the Log4Shell vulnerability that recently came to light and caught everyone off guard. Not only is this flaw insanely easy to exploit but the impacted Log4j library is used in nearly every enterprise Java installation -- and the vulnerability gives attackers ultimate power to download, delete, install, and server-hop as they please. As even massive companies like Google, PayPal, Apple, and Netflix are impacted by this flaw via the software supply chain, it’s another one that makes organizations wonder: are we using that too?

In 2022, IT leaders will intensify their supply chain focus to answer this very question, expanding their scrutiny from their own applications to the components they buy and integrate. Widening the scope of the supply chain is crucial; outside software and components need their checks and balances just as code created internally does. This deepened understanding of supply chain risk will increase demands to test and secure everything, from the most seemingly insignificant open source package to the most extensive APIs and third-party components.

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Cloud is no longer the new technology on the block and has become firmly established as part of the IT mainstream. But that doesn't mean that it's standing still.

What can we expect to see from the cloud in 2022? (If you answered 'rain' go to the back of the class!) Industry experts gave us their views.

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In recent years development teams have been under increasing pressure to produce software and updates quickly, a trend that's only been accelerated by COVID-19.

So, what do industry experts think that 2022 has in store for developers?

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Although it’s had a number of problems in the past, most following Piriform’s takeover by Avast in 2017, CCleaner remains a great program for removing junk from your computer.

Except that’s not true of the latest version of the program which users report is unable to clear cookies from Chrome and other browsers.

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LG has announced details of some of its 2022 range of monitors, due to be properly unveiled at CES in January. By far the most interesting is the LG DualUp Monitor with the rather extraordinary aspect ratio of 16:18.

As you may have calculated, this is essentially two 16:9 monitors merged into one, eliminating the border that would ordinarily appear between two seperate screens. With a resolution of 2560 x 2880, the DualUp monitor is great for multi-taskers, and while the specs are not mind-blowing, it's a screen that's interesting enough to warrant a second look.

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DuckDuckGo is a name associated with privacy, and it is best known for its tracking-free search engine. But the company has other strings to its bow, including a privacy-focused web browser for mobile devices.

Now there are plans to bring things to the desktop. With DuckDuckGo for desktop, the company is looking to give users a fast, simple and private alternative to the likes of Chrome. Interestingly, DuckDuckGo says that the desktop browser will not be based on Chromium, but that it will be built "around the OS-provided rendering engines".

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If your laptop or tablet PC only has USB-C, you can buy a home docking station, such as this one from VisionTek, to expand the connectivity. But what if you don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a dock, plus you really only need to add video output functionality? For instance, maybe you just need to add HDMI. In that case, a single-purpose dongle can save you some money. These dongles can be good for portability too, as they won't take up much room in a travel bag.

Today, StarTech.com launches five new USB-C video dongles, all of which feature long 12-inch cables. Why are five products necessary? Because each USB-C adapter offers a different connection type on the other end -- HDMI, VGA, DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort, and DVI. In other words, no matter what type of television, monitor, or projector you have, StarTech.com has you covered.

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For anyone making the switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11, there is quite a lot to learn, as well as a reasonable amount of stuff to unlearn. And for anyone venturing out into computing for the first time, or people making the switch from macoS or Linux to Windows, there even more to consider!

ThisIsWin11 is a free portable app that serves several purposes, one of which is introducing some of the key features of Windows 11. The app started life as a simple project to help people to become familiar with the latest version of Windows, but it has expanded to be a tweaking tool as well. And the latest incarnation introduces a completely new look.

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