Today, WikiLeaks publishes the third installment of its Vault 7 CIA leaks. We've already had the Year Zero files which revealed a number of exploits for popular hardware and software, and the Dark Matter batch which focused on Mac and iPhone exploits.

Now we have Marble to look at. A collection of 676 source code files, the Marble cache reveals details of the CIA's Marble Framework tool, used to hide the true source of CIA malware, and sometimes going as far as appearing to originate from countries other than the US.

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The technology news has recently seen a few Disaster Recovery (DR) stories that remind us, as both consumers and professionals, of the need to be secure in the knowledge of the service that we provide to you.

The expectations for digital products have never been higher -- we all want intuitive insights and functions that are always on, matched with vast data sources, alongside high performance, across multiple devices.

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Backups aren't something that you should be doing only once a year, even so like most things these days backup has its own day and has had since 2011. World Backup Day is designed to raise awareness among consumers and businesses of the importance of keeping an up to date backup of your data.

Cloud backup specialist CloudBerry Lab is doing its bit by offering free licenses for its Windows, Linux, and macOS products for a limited period.

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Windows Privacy Tweaker is an easy-to-use portable application for viewing and controlling more than 50 Windows telemetry and privacy settings.

Unlike many similar programs, this isn’t just for Windows 10. You’ll be able to see and toggle some settings on anything from Windows Vista up.

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Following UK home secretary Amber Rudd's suggestion that encrypted messaging service WhatsApp was 'a secret place to hide' for terrorists, four major technology companies met with the minister to discuss the removal of extremist material from websites and social media.

Microsoft, Google, Twitter and Facebook met with Rudd amid calls from civil liberties groups for greater transparency. Following the meeting, senior executives from each company signed a statement indicating that they are ready to work with the government to tackle the problem. The matter of backdoors into encrypted apps and services, however, remained off the table.

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Two days ago, the US House voted to destroy the rights of American web users, essentially putting their privacy up for sale.

Now, as reported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Verizon has announced plans to install software on Android devices that will track which apps customers download and use. This data will be shared with other Verizon companies, including AOL, and used to push targeted ads on you across the internet. If that doesn’t sound all that bad, the EFF points out the ads could be based on things such as "which bank you use and whether you’ve downloaded a fertility app."

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Microsoft has released yet another chatbot, and this one is aimed specifically at the Indian market. Named Ruuh, the chatbot is said to enjoy chatting about Bollywood, music, humor, travel and browsing the net.

It is available only in India and only in English, at least for now. It was launched on February 7, with Microsoft filing for a trademark on March 15.

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The cloud skills shortage that’s omnipresent in British business seems to be forcing companies to turn a blind eye on candidates lacking certification. This is according to Microsoft’s newly released report, entitled "Microsoft Cloud Skills Report: Closing the Cloud Skills Chasm."

Polling UK businesses for the report, 45 percent said certifications are "nice to have," but just 35 per cent said they’re desirable or essential. The report calls this proportion "surprisingly low," questioning if this could "be a further symptom of the challenges of finding people with adequate skills in the first place".

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UK organizations consider cloud skills essential to digital transformation, according to a new report by Microsoft.

Entitled "Microsoft Cloud Skills Report: Closing the Cloud Skills Chasm", it says 83 percent of UK’s organizations consider cloud skills "important" or "critical" to digital transformation.

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Despite the on-going uncertainty as the UK triggers Brexit proceedings, IT employees remain in high demand as rapid developments in IT are increasingly causing companies to experience wider skills gaps that they are struggling to fill. At 21 percent, IT and digital skills were cited as one of the top three skills most needed by organizations to achieve their business objectives this year.

IT professionals in cloud infrastructure, projects and change management, development and security saw the biggest salary increases last year of over two percent, however almost half of IT employees were dissatisfied with their rate of pay this year.

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There are a lot of languages in the world -- there are many you probably have never heard of before. Many people think each country uses just one language, and that is it. This is far from the truth, however. Canada, for instance, uses both English and French. Heck, despite English being predominate (for now), the United States doesn't even have an official language!

In the People's Republic of Bangladesh, the most spoken language is Bangla. Despite the South Asian country being the eighth most populous in the world, for whatever reason, Microsoft Translator did not support the language. Today this changes, however, as the Windows-maker finally (অবশেষে) adds support.

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Yesterday, Microsoft announced that the Windows 10 Creators Update will begin rolling out to users on April 11. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll get it then.

As with last year’s Anniversary Update, Microsoft will roll out the update in waves, with newer PCs and tablets receiving it first, so it could be a while before it comes to your device. However, if you’re keen to be among the first to install it, there’s a simple trick you can use to get it nearly a week early -- on April 5.

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Solid state drives are absolutely fabulous, but serial ATA variants are getting a bit long in the tooth. Don't get me wrong, if you are still using an old-fashioned mechanical hard drive, any SSD should give you better performance. With that said, NVMe M.2 drives are far superior. Of course, not all computers support the faster standard, so 2.5-inch SATA models are still relevant -- for now.

Today, ADATA announces a new 2.5-inch SATA SSD. Called "Ultimate SU700," it features 3D NAND and capacities up to 960GB -- just shy of a terabyte.

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When it comes to cloud skills, there’s a significant gender gap, and it’s particularly visible in the UK. This is according to a new report by Microsoft, entitled "Microsoft Cloud Skills Report: Closing the Cloud Skills Chasm." According to it, the gender mix among technical IT staff is 20 percent female versus 80 percent male. In just a fifth of companies (21 percent) the gender mix was 40 percent or greater.

Microsoft says this gender imbalance is "concerning," but perhaps even more concerning is the fact that very few companies are actually doing something about it. A third (35 percent) said they had no policies to address the issues (46 percent for companies with 250 to 999 staff). A quarter (23 percent) said they didn’t know of any actions put in place.

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Digital transformation is happening at a rapid rate, and in order to stay competitive, organizations need to push the limits of their traditional BI and analytics frameworks with predictive and prescriptive capabilities to generate faster and more accurate business outcomes. Gartner predicts that by 2020, predictive and prescriptive analytics will attract 40 percent of enterprises' net new investment in business intelligence and analytics.

Traditional Business Intelligence (BI) tools and analytics frameworks are still in the descriptive stage and can only assist users with the two questions -- "what is happening?" or "what has happened?" To answer the "what will happen next?", predictive, prescriptive, and cognitive computing is necessary. These 3 types of analytics are being enhanced by AI technology to automate mundane and repetitive tasks and predict a clear path going forward. Data is being analyzed faster and more accurately with these advanced analytics frameworks, and decisions are being automated with machine learning to decrease human error and increase the organization’s bottom line profit. Machine learning can detect new patterns and opportunities that humans cannot.

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