Latest Technology News

Microsoft has just announced that it will be releasing the first preview of its new cloud-based tool called Project Springfield. It has been designed to aid developers in spotting "million dollar bugs" in their Windows applications before launch.

The reason the company is making Project Springfield available to Windows developers is to save them from the "costly effort" of having to release patches to fix broken software after it has already been made public.

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Apple has historically been very guarded and secretive. While this is still true today, the company has definitely become more open after Steve Job's death. Quite frankly, the fact that there are now public betas for both iOS and macOS is mind-blowing for the Apple faithful. Last month, the company even launched its first bug bounty program! Why did Apple soften its guarded position? It had to. As the technology market advances, and security becomes a bigger focus, it is not possible to catch all bugs and vulnerabilities in house.

While the bug bounty and public betas were very wise moves, the company is apparently taking things a step further. According to Forbes, Apple is enlisting iPhone jailbreakers and other hackers (such as Luca Todesco, Nicholas Allegra and Patrick Wardle) to bolster the security of its products using the aforementioned bug bounty program. In fact, it is rumored to be happening at a secret meeting. If true, is the company smart to trust these people?

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A quarter of European companies are completely unprepared for the event of a cyberattack and would be extremely exposed if it happened, a new report by global law firm DLA Piper claims.

The paper also says that almost half of all companies (44 percent) view cyberattacks as a significant risk to their business, which means that a significant portion is aware of the problem yet does nothing. Among companies in Western Europe the number rises to almost a third (31 percent). The Benelux region is by far the worst, with 75 percent of companies being exposed.

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Back in August we learned of access to US voter registration databases in the states of Arizona and Illinois. After an extensive investigation it was widely believed the attempts had come from Russia, which has a history of attempting to influence votes in foreign nations.

Now Director Comey has once again appeared before congress to give some more bad news. "There have been a variety of scanning activities, which is a preamble for potential intrusion activities, as well as some attempted intrusions at voter registration databases beyond those we knew about in July and August", Comey states.

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What kind of people spend their time looking for software bugs? Crowdsourced testing company Bugcrowd has released a report looking at how its community is made up that might give you a clue.

Bugcrowd researchers come from all over the world, as of September 1, 2016, the United States (29 percent) and India (28 percent) had the most sign-ups, followed by the United Kingdom on six percent.

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Microsoft has provided more details as to how it will be integrating Office 365 Groups into its enterprise-focused social network Yammer. On January 1, 2017, the Yammer Enterprise service tier will be discontinued, but the social network will remain available and will be integrated with Office 365 services in a number of ways.

Within Yammer itself, it will be possible for users to create Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents through Office Online. Users will also be able to move their work from Yammer to a shared OneNote notebook or to the Microsoft Planner Project Management tool.

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Now that Android 7.0 is officially available, OnePlus 3 users are starting to wonder when their "flagship killer" will receive a software update to Nougat. The smartphone has received frequent updates since its launch in June, but the latest version of OxygenOS that you can get today has yet to make the move from Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.

OnePlus is committed to improving the software for its third flagship, as evidenced by the numerous updates released so far and the introduction of a community build, and, as such, it should not come as a surprise to hear that it is "actively working" on bringing Nougat to OnePlus 3.

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The use of push notifications in apps to reach users is an attractive option for marketers. But done wrongly it can lead to more annoyance than success.

So what do companies need to do to ensure their notifications are effective? App monetization platform Tapjoy has released data based on a study of over 4.4 million push notifications sent between February and August 2016, to help businesses use push notifications effectively.

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The shift of systems to the cloud has made enterprise data visible beyond the perimeter of the organization, employees can access it from anywhere, and that has an effect on insider threats.

Data protection company Bitglass has released its report on insider threats in the enterprise, featuring insights from over 500 cyber security professionals on the state of insider data leaks and the tools used to mitigate these threats.

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HP recently upset printer owners by using a software update to block the use of third party ink cartridges. Such was the uproar -- including a campaign by the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- that HP has seen the error of its ways and, quietly, backtracked.

Just like the initial update, this latest change of heart is not being shouted from the rooftops by HP. The company may be hoping that the bad news about blocked cartridges will stick in people's minds, but the good news is that a new update will be pushed out within a couple of weeks that removes the 'dynamic security feature'.

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SAP has officially announced that it has acquired the startup Altiscale, which offers cloud based versions of the Hadoop and Spark open source software for storing, processing and analyzing many different kinds of data.

Rumors of the acquisition began to circulate a month ago when it was believed that SAP intended to purchase the company for over $125 million. Neither company though would confirm or deny the rumors, but during the course of the next few weeks, SAP executives began to comment on the deal.

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Five of the biggest names in the world of technology have joined forces to create the Partnership on AI. The aim of the group is to increase public awareness of artificial intelligence, conduct research, and promote best practice guidelines.

Comprising Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft -- although, interestingly, not Apple -- the group says that it does not intend to lobby government or government bodies. Instead, the aim is to promote AI so that it can be used to "help humanity address important global challenges such as climate change, food, inequality, health, and education".

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Next month, one of the most important desktop operating systems will get a major update. No, I am not talking about Windows or macOS; I am referring to Ubuntu. True, from a market share perspective Linux-based desktop operating systems are rather insignificant, but for those in the know, Canonical's open source OS is quite brilliant. Its fans and users are very loyal and passionate.

Today, the final beta of the upcoming Ubuntu Linux 16.10 becomes available. While this version -- dubbed 'Yakkety Yak' -- will not reinvent the wheel, it should offer enough to delight existing users of the open source operating system. Hey, if it's not broke, why fix it, right? That is a lesson Microsoft learned the hard way with Windows 8, but I digress.

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Last week it came to light that Salesforce was considering a takeover of Twitter. Now it appears though that Walt Disney is also interested in placing a bid on the social network which could be used to help deliver its content to even more consumers.

So far it seems that Disney is interested in Twitter's ability to distribute video streaming to a large global audience. If the deal were to go through, it would give the company a new channel to distribute its content, as well as content from both ABC and ESPN which it owns. Now that consumers are watching less television, Twitter could be the perfect means for Disney to provide sports, news and entertainment to its customers.

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Apple is setting up its new London headquarters in one of the most iconic buildings of the capital's skyline. Battersea Power Station will soon be home to 1,400 Apple staff, who will occupy 40 percent of the building.

Sitting next to the River Thames, the former power station has been unused for a number of years, but is set to enjoy a new lease of life as part of a redevelopment project in the area.

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