Latest Technology News

Two-hundred-and-thirty-one in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Windows Store in the past seven days.

This week saw several strong releases including the new Microsoft application Send to OneNote, the excellent vector graphics designer Gravit Designer, and the popular game Survival Arena.

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The Facebook Messenger app for iOS and Android is an utter mess of ideas at the moment. The confused interface is all over the place and decidedly user unfriendly. All that is set to change, though, thanks to an update that rolls out this week.

The update brings a slightly updated look which makes navigation a little easier. Tabs help to keep things better organized so you can jump to where you want to be more easily. The changes do not go as far as letting you kill the endlessly irritating Messenger Day/Stories feature, but it does go some way to improving things.

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Last week's WannaCrypt attack infected over 200,000 devices and is estimated to have made its perpetrators $72,000.

Increasingly scammers and criminals are seeing the internet as a means of making financial returns. Cyber crime has become a serious business and no business or information is safe from attack.

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Panos Panay may have said that the Surface Pro 5 does not exist, but that certainly does not mean there's not a Surface Pro 4 successor. Microsoft has an event scheduled for Monday in Shanghai, and Panay himself has already indicated that it is Surface-related.

Ahead of the event, writer and serial leaker Evan Blass has revealed a number of images of the upcoming device which drops the numbering and is to be known simply as the Surface Pro.

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Both augmented and virtual reality show no sign of slowing down -- these are certainly technologies to keep an eye on over the next several years. Microsoft and Google have been very public with their projects, while there are rumors that Apple is secretly working on both AR and VR too.

Google's Tango is one of the most ambitious such projects, bringing augmented reality capabilities to Android devices. Earlier today at Google I/O, ASUS announced that the upcoming ZenFone AR smartphone -- compatible with both Tango and Daydream -- will be a Verizon exclusive.

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While some people may feel that their office job is stressful -- and maybe it is -- there are workers in the world that do physically hard work that is much more strenuous. They may work in dangerous and dirty conditions where not only is their health at risk, but so too is their computer. For instance, they may work in a location with tremendous dust, risk of flooding, and falling debris. For these jobs, an extremely rugged laptop or tablet could be needed.

When it comes to rugged computers, Panasonic's legendary Toughbook laptops are always a wise choice. These computers have a reputation for surviving really rough conditions. Today, the company announces its latest bad-ass notebook -- the Toughbook 33. Not only is it a laptop, but a detachable tablet too.

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There is no doubt that public clouds like Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google constitute rapidly growing and attractive alternatives to traditional on premise IT operations leading many organizations to conclude that they are "not IT companies" and/or "do not want to be in the IT business."

But few companies can escape the mandate to be present online, to conduct business online, and to deal with partners, suppliers, customers, and employees online. This mandate is causing companies to embark upon initiatives to "digitize" their businesses, which means to implement these crucial business functions in software.

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Enterprise communications are set to see a major overhaul within the next five years, according to a new report. Research from Fuze found that almost six in ten (59 percent) of companies have prioritized adopting new communication technology.

Based on a survey of 900 IT leaders, the report says 64 percent are looking to cut the number of communications apps to remove complexity. Two thirds (64 percent) are also looking to move their communications completely into the cloud. Sixty-three percent will have adopted a unified communications system by 2022, and 62 percent think video will replace voice-based comms by 2022.

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More than four fifths (84 percent) of small business owners in the UK, and almost half (43 percent) of senior executives in large companies have no idea what GDPR is and that it’s coming.

That's according to Shred-it’s Security Tracker research, which also found that roughly one in seven (14 percent) of small business owners, and 31 percent of senior executives know what the fines of not complying with the GDPR are.

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From the words, to how the form looks, and on to interactivity, Designing UX: Forms will show you how to design a web form that works beautifully on mobiles, laptops and desktops.

It’s filled with practical and engaging insights, and plenty of real-world examples, both good and bad.

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When Microsoft purchased LinkedIn back in December 2016, many predicted the eventual integration of Dynamics with the world’s primary professional social network. As well as being a valuable business networking tool, LinkedIn is just as useful for cold sales leads and recruitment prospects as it is for connecting people.

With Dynamics 365 designed to combine the company’s CRM and ERP services into a single cloud-based platform, the prospect of having access to nearly 500 million LinkedIn users could be more than enough to sway a new customer towards Microsoft. Dynamics 365 now has a clear advantage, but what impact will this have on the CRM software market when pitted against its competitors?

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Everyone thinks autonomous, self-driving cars are the next big opportunity in the automobile industry -- but it is the connected car that will drive the next major transformation in car owners’ driving experience. Previously, low-bandwidth cellular network connectivity and immature, cobbled-together proprietary technologies prevented automobile manufacturers from fully realizing the potential of the connected car.

However, with the arrival of standards-based, broadband-enabled turnkey connected car platforms, automobile manufacturers can finally make cars an integral part of the Internet of Things (IoT) and offer drivers mobility, preventive maintenance, infotainment and other connected car services that deliver a significantly better driving experience. In addition, the rise of the connected car will be a powerful force driving the development of the technology and infrastructure required to build a real path to a self-driving car future.

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The road to becoming an IT professional is often thought to be a lifelong process, however, new research claims that this is not the case.

A new report from Spiceworks, entitled "A Portrait of IT Workers," says 41 pe cent of IT pros in the UK consider themselves "accidental" and that they ended up in their career via a "non-traditional" route.

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Summertime is almost here, meaning families will begin spending more time outdoors enjoying nature, right? Not necessarily. In modern times, devices seem to rule our attention. Things like computer monitors, televisions, smartphones, and tablets keep our eyes focused on screens like zombies.

To highlight just how bad things have gotten, a new survey reveals that families will spend more than a third of the 2017 summer season with their eyes glued to some sort of screen. To make matters worse, parents say that while they would prefer to do more activities away from devices, outings are far too expensive. A typical weekend family getaway with all things factored in, could average $2,328! Sadly, the overuse of "screens" are negatively impacting the health and behavior of children too.

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Despite the death of Unity, there is still no shortage of desktop environments for Ubuntu. In fact, there are some Linux-based operating systems that exist mostly to provide an arguably better environment and experience. Two good examples of this are Linux Mint and elementary OS. While these distros are more than just Ubuntu with an alternative DE, the UI is largely the star of the show. While Mint caters to folks that have trouble moving beyond the interfaces of yesteryear, elementary instead focuses on a forward-looking experience.

Today, elementary OS Loki -- the latest version of the operating system -- reaches a new milestone. Release 0.4.1 adds many new features, including an updated 4.8 kernel, improved Kaby Lake support, and most importantly, the all-new crowd-funded AppCenter!

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