Microsoft announces Minecraft: Education Edition
Going to school for many students is a total drag. In some schools, technology lags behind the "real world". Heck, I'm not an old guy, yet I had to learn the 100-year old Dewey Decimal System in elementary school -- something totally worthless nowadays. In other words, my interest in learning was negatively impacted by a lack of excitement and a failure to focus on the future. We kids knew the things we were being taught were dated.
Luckily, children have it much better these days. Between iPads, Chromebooks, and smartphones, everything is at their fingertips. Today, however, Microsoft-owned company, Mojang, announces that it is making education much more exciting with Minecraft: Education Edition. Yes, the wildly popular block-based game is being adapted for learning thanks to the purchase of third-party MinecraftEdu.
Internet of Things' rising popularity will increase security risks, business costs
We all know that the Internet of Things is growing, and more and more firms are using the new technology to take their businesses to the next level, but just how big is IoT now, and how much will it grow?
Gartner has given a few interesting predictions, including one which says that more than half of all new business processes and systems will use some form of IoT by 2020.
Enterprises keen to adopt Windows 10
A new survey of IT professionals from large organizations reveals higher than anticipated momentum for the adoption of Windows 10, with 63 percent of respondents expecting to run Windows 10 on a significant number of systems this year. The study from systems management specialist Adaptiva shows that of those IT departments that piloted Windows 10, nearly half (40 percent) have now deployed it on 50 percent or more of their systems, indicating strong confidence levels and unprecedented adoption of the new operating system.
The large scale movement to Windows 10 is fueling high demand for the new version of Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr), software used to distribute and update operating systems and other software. Roughly two-thirds (65 percent) of those moving to the new ConfigMgr released in December cited deployment, updating, and management of Windows 10 as their biggest motivators for upgrading. The announcement earlier this month that Windows 8 will no longer receive security patches is also thought to be accelerating the drive to Windows 10.
Samsung: Inserting the S Pen backwards will not break new Galaxy Note 5 units
As you may already know, Galaxy Note 5 has launched with a rather serious flaw: if the S Pen is inserted backwards it will get stuck and break the device's stylus detection mechanism, which, in turn, will render some of its software functionality useless. Samsung has responded quickly, advising users to "follow the instructions". As logical and simple as that may sound, it may be hard for some users to heed the advice, especially if they are, as my colleague Mark Wilson put it, "a little tired, drunk, young, or stupid".
In the meantime, Samsung has developed a new mechanism that will no longer create these kind of issues when users attempt to insert the S Pen the wrong way. And it is included in new Galaxy Note 5 units, according to the company.
61 percent of new organizations are born in the cloud
The cloud is changing the way businesses and IT teams operate and a new survey from industry specialist BetterCloud reveals the extent of the shift.
Based on a survey of 1,500 IT professionals it shows that of organizations started in the last two years 61 percent have begun their operations in the cloud. In addition 59 percent of IT professionals say the cloud has changed the structure and responsibilities of their team in the past year.
What you should consider before adopting Facebook at Work
The news that Facebook at Work is due to be rolled out in the first part of this year will be welcomed by many businesses, especially those keen to see more effective use of technology in the workplace and to see greater employee engagement through increased levels of connectivity. For employees used to managing their personal lives via social media and technology, the arrival may seem long overdue.
The work place version of Facebook will replicate many of the features of the well-known social version, giving employees and co-workers a range of ways in which to communicate, collaborate and interact. The increasing globalization of business and reliance on remote and flexible ways of working mean that keeping employees meaningfully connected is critical to driving business success. As an added side benefit, the introduction of more effective communication methods often leads to a reduction in the use of internal email systems. This in turn can help businesses manage IT capacity and reduce the need for employees to monitor unnecessary email traffic.
3 Screen Recorder extensions for Chrome
From tutorials to troubleshooting, game walkthroughs, presentations or just sharing desktop activity, everyone can use a screen recorder occasionally.
This used to mean tracking down and installing some low-level native application, but there are now some surprisingly capable Chrome extensions which just might do everything you need.
Twitter suffers global outages
For many people around the globe, Twitter was inaccessible today. The site suffered problems that affected its web and mobile faces, and it didn’t take long for the #twitterdown hashtag to start trending.
The problem was confirmed -- somehow -- on Twitter by the Twitter Support account, and the developer API status page showed that there were issues with no fewer than four APIs. On Monday, Twitter suffered a brief outage, but Tuesday's was rather longer.
AMD says SYSmark benchmarks are Intel-biased and don't reflect real-world usage
Chip maker AMD has complained that the popular benchmarking tool SYSmark is biased toward rival Intel. The company says that the software focuses far too much on CPU activity and that this is not reflective of real-world computer use.
In a stern video, John Hampton and Tony Salinas from AMD compare SYSmark benchmark with results from Futuremark's PCMark 8 as well as scripts devised in-house. Comparing an Intel Core i5 with a 'comparable' AMD FX chip, SYSmark was found to report a much greater performance difference -- in Intel's favor. AMD describes this as "quite astonishing and not realistic".
Lost Prediction #4 -- My Steve Jobs movie returns to Netflix
At least one reader pointed out that I somehow missed 2016 Prediction #4, so let me throw something in right here. Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview will shortly return to Netflix worldwide!
Our movie was on Netflix in the USA and Canada for a couple of years (it’s still streaming on Netflix in the UK) but the North American deal ended sometime in November when rights reverted from Magnolia Pictures back to John Gau Productions. The film had already disappeared from iTunes and Amazon, etc., but we hadn’t noticed because, well, Magnolia didn’t bother to mention it and we’re only pretending to be movie producers.
Young people find traditional education inadequate
Today’s youth has a positive view about the future and their role in it. However, many young people believe that traditional education doesn’t do enough to prepare them for their professional life.
These are the results of a recent poll commissioned by consulting firm Infosys.
Disable those 'Get Windows 10' pop-ups with GWX Stopper
While it’s great that Microsoft is offering free upgrades to Windows 10, it’s maybe less impressive that they’re using regular pop-up ads to tell us about this. Over, and over, and over again.
If you’re happy with Windows 7 or 8 then there are various ways to get rid of these alerts, but GWX Stopper is probably the simplest of all.
Big Data EMEA revenue to reach $2.7bn by 2019
Big Data, and its infrastructure is expected to grow significantly in the next four years, a new study by the International Data Corporation (IDC) shows.
IDC has done an in-depth market sizing of the Big Data infrastructure in Europe, Middle East and Africa, including servers and storage, as well as cloud resources, and here are the results:
France joins the Netherlands in saying no to cryptographic backdoors
Secure communications exist for many reasons, including free speech from behind the borders of certain nations, to business secrets being discussed. These days it's under attack from several sectors, including law enforcement agencies investigating crimes and those who claim to need info for catching terrorists -- something we've recently found can be futile in some cases.
Just the other day we heard that the state of New York is looking to legislate backdoors into mobile devices, a law that seems unlikely to pass, given the amount of opposition and evidence against it being effective to anyone but the hackers, who are likely to be quick to find these openings.
Doro PDF printer adds color conversion, page rotation controls
Lightweight virtual PDF printer Doro has been updated with new color conversion and page rotation settings.
If the default "UseDeviceIndependentColor" color conversion strategy doesn’t work, then you can now convert to RGB, CMYK or grayscale, or just use the colors in the source document.
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