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Believe it or not, on May 1 of this year, Advanced Micro Devices (also known as AMD) will celebrate its 50th birthday. Wow. It is very impressive for any company to survive so long, but it is particularly hard to do so in the technology industry. It is remarkable that the processor-maker is still relevant all these years later.

To celebrate this monumental 50th birthday, AMD is launching some special "Gold Edition" variants of its products. There are two things, actually --  a Gold Edition Ryzen 7 2700X CPU and Radeon VII graphics card. Both of these products highlight AMD's biggest markets -- CPU and GPU.

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Now that technology is at the core of all business activities, IT finds itself evolving from having a supporting role to having a more central and crucial one. Even for startups, it's important to effectively define IT's place in the organization given the new realities created by the changing landscapes of technology and commerce.

Consider how dramatically this role has changed. Just over a decade ago, IT leaders were concerned with improving connectivity within the workplace and bringing their organizations online. More recently, they’ve had to worry about things like mobile tunneling, GDPR compliance and optimizing real-time business intelligence dashboards.

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In early April, more than 30,000 attendees gathered in San Francisco at Google Cloud Next to hear a variety of new announcements and innovations as told through product reveals, break-out sessions and keynote speakers. Included in the long list of what’s to come were several key features that will substantially impact document management on G Suite.

I’ve narrowed down that information into the following three main takeaways regarding document management and business processes: 

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A new report into the financial services threat landscape shows that there has been a huge increase in the number of banking credential leaks, while instances of compromised credit cards increased by 212 percent year-on-year.

The report from threat protection platform IntSights reveals many of the leaked credentials came from the Collection #1 database of over 773 million unique email addresses and 21 million unique passwords released onto the Dark Web in January this year.

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The Windows 10 May 2019 Update is currently undergoing testing in the Release Preview ring to ensure it should be relatively bug free when it finally rolls out to all (in theory at least).

Microsoft has already identified an issue that prevents the OS update from installing on systems with a USB flash drive or SD card connected.

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The latest data risk report from security company Varonis reveals that 53 percent of companies have at least 1,000 sensitive files open to all employees, putting them at risk of data breaches.

Keeping old sensitive data that risks fines under HIPAA, GDPR and the upcoming CCPA is a problem too. The report finds over half of data is stale and 87 percent of companies have over 1,000 stale sensitive files, with 71 percent having over 5,000 stale sensitive files.

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Data privacy is a major concern for businesses, made more acute by the raft of new compliance and data protection rules appearing around the world.

Immuta is launching a platform with no-code, automated governance features that enable business analysts and data scientists to securely share and collaborate with data, dashboards, and scripts without fear of violating data policy and industry regulations.

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Apple has been upsetting developers of parental control apps recently by asking them to restrict their offerings in various ways, or simply removing them from the App Store. Critics say that this is because the apps compete with iOS's Screen Time feature.

Apple has now responded to the criticism, denying that this is the reason for its interference with and removal of apps. The company insists its actions had nothing to do with killing off the competition, but says that several parental control apps were delisted because "they put users' privacy and security at risk".

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If you are having trouble accessing TVCatchup  via its mobile app or through its website, you are not alone. The UK TV streaming service has gone dark, and it could be a permanent closure.

The service has been no stranger to controversy and managed to attract the attention -- and the wrath -- of numerous broadcasters, and became embroiled in a legal battle. Having managed to stay online for longer than many would have imagined, it seems you’ll now have to seek out an alternative to TVCatchup.

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Good website security is essential to give customers confidence in your business, but for smaller organizations testing can prove difficult.

To address this issue, security testing and risk rating company ImmuniWeb is launching a free website security test that can be used by anyone.

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Windows 10 is a functional operating system, but goodness, it is not at all attractive. When I use Microsoft's OS, I don't get feelings of joy or happiness. Windows 10's design is very bland and seemingly uninspired. By comparison, Apple's macOS makes me very happy. And yes, appearance matters -- a good user interface and design can motivate the user and help them to be more creative.

As great as macOS is, there is a Linux distribution that rivals its beauty. Called deepin, this operating system is now based on Debian Stable (previously Debian Unstable), and provides an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous user interface. In fact, I am confident to say it is the most beautiful Linux distro. The newest version, deepin 15.10, is now available for download. It is chock full of bug fixes, and also, many new features. One of the most significant changes is dde-kwin is now the default window manager. Users should experience improved performance as a result.

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With iOS 12, Apple introduced Screen Time, a feature that serves as a parental control tool and encourages periods away from the screen. Tim Cook said last year that he thought he used his phone too much (more recently adding, "we don't want people using their phones all the time"), and Screen Time is Apple attempt to muscle in on the countering of "phone addiction".

For those who are concerned about how much they are using their phone, or who are concerned about their children, it seems like a great feature. But for app developers who have spent years crafting tools that offered these options before Apple, the news is not so good. A new report reveals that Apple is interfering with apps that compete with Screen Time, even going as far as de-listing them without warning.

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Microsoft has released Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18885 (or Windows 10 20H1, if you prefer) to the Fast Ring. The big addition in this latest build is Android notification mirroring in Windows via the Your Phone app.

If you have an Android 7.0 handset, you can (probably, barring handset-specific compatibility issues) take advantage of the ability to see phone notifications in Windows 10. The range of phones that can use the "phone screen" screen mirroring option has been expanded as well. With Build 18885, Microsoft has also addressed the problem that was preventing people from installing updates when they had a USB drive or SD card connected.

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In the fast-paced world of the IT channel, choosing the right partner can make or break a business. In an ideal world, the partnership delivers a result that’s greater than the sum of its parts -- after all that’s the whole point of the channel. A successful partnership should mean that customers benefit from outstanding technology, service and support, which in turn brings the partners sustained revenues and opportunities to grow sales. So often, however, partner selection is rushed and it’s unclear how the businesses will work to align their expertise and create a genuinely compelling proposition for customers.

Ineffective partnerships are a real threat to success, and that’s why we’re seeing a real push among Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) towards strategies to empower the channel and recognition that the first steps are selecting the right partners, followed by proactive investment in the ongoing relationship.

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Following the revelation that Facebook "unintentionally" scraped and uploaded 1.5 million users' email contacts, the New York attorney general's office has announced that it is opening an investigation into the social media giant.

Attorney general Letitia James said that it is "time Facebook is held accountable for how it handles consumers' personal information".

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