Microsoft has signed an important deal with the Chinese government, one which will see the American company deploy its latest operating system directly to the government agencies.

The Verge has reported how the Redmond-based software company will deploy a customized version of Windows 10 to the Chinese government through a newly-formed company called C&M Technologies.

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High school can stink; it is no secret. Besides the arguably boring classes, isolating cliques, and mentally deranged bullies, getting up early in the morning as a teen is such a drag. Of course, getting an education is wonderful; it's just too bad that it can't be more exciting, and without the aforementioned baggage. Don't worry, things should get better at college.

Luckily, Christmas vacation is approaching, meaning students can get a break from school for a bit. This means sleeping in late, playing video games and hanging out with friends. But what if you could win $1,000 too? Well, thanks to Microsoft, you have the chance to do just that!

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A survey commissioned by X-IO Technologies reveals that almost half of IT professionals (48 percent) do not believe their current storage array would work with the next generation of storage media

Furthermore, more than a half (57 percent) of IT professionals expect that their budgets are going to shrink or at the very least stay the same in 2016. This may indicate that any further changes to their storage requirements, especially in the wake of the IOT hype and big data explosion might not find a budget.

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Google is placing an increased importance on security in 2016. The company has set aside $1 million to fund independent research into the security of its Drive cloud storage service, and will continue to offer a bug bounty program.

Acknowledging that "keeping files safe in Google Drive is super important", Google says that next year it will make the money available to independent security researchers. The money comes in addition to the funds that are used to employ hundreds of security experts at the company, with independence bringing an extra level of scrutiny.

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Microsoft announced in early October that the Windows 10 Mobile rollout for existing Windows Phone 8.1 devices would kick off in December. But, with less than two weeks to go before the end of the year, the software giant now says that the much-awaited software upgrades will not be available until later than expected.

Microsoft expects Windows 10 Mobile software upgrades to be made available starting "early next year" for "select existing Windows 8 and 8.1 phones". That is, assuming everything goes according to plan.

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The top quality cameras on modern smartphones make it easy to record just about every detail of your life, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

But while that’s great in theory, it can lead to problems if someone else accesses your phone and sees something you weren’t expecting to share.

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One-hundred and fifty-nine in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 in the past seven days.

Several popular applications received updates this week including Netflix, TripAdvisor, AccuWeather and NPR One.

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Internet of Things this, Internet of Things that -- it’s all anyone can talk about these days. And rightfully so, when you consider the development and adoption of IoT products are driven by multiple factors, including an increase in broadband penetration worldwide, the development of wireless communication technologies, advances in 'smart' device capabilities and an increased demand for personalized, omnichannel customer experiences.

But transitioning to an IoT-dominated world is a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, you have businesses benefiting in many ways. For instance, connected devices allow them to better understand their customers’ needs and preferences by analyzing their behavioral patterns. For consumers, on the other hand, it’s all about personalization, personalization, personalization -- getting from point A to point B faster than ever before -- in a more relevant and personal way. Furthermore, most conversations around data protection solely focus on elaborate 'hacks', when in reality, the most immediate and grave security threats aren’t always sophisticated or complicated. It’s time that we flip the IoT conversation on its head to focus on the increasingly common data vulnerabilities and less complicated security threats -- of which, consumers are lacking awareness.

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Yesterday we told you that Netflix for Windows 10 had received an update, but that's not all that's coming to Windows. Firefox also has plans to up the ante with HTML5 Video for Windows. This is the much-utilized format on the internet today.

Netflix is announcing that Firefox now comes with the latest HTML5 premium video extensions, such as Media Source Extensions (MSE), which the streaming service utilizes in an effort to adapt its streaming to the bandwidth of each viewer, and Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), that allows for the viewing of encrypted content.

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According to the results of a new survey, 84 percent of CIOs believe their organization can analyze data in real-time, however, only 42 percent of developers agree with that statement.

This difference of opinion is one of the findings of the study by in-memory data platform specialist VoltDB. Where 91 percent of CIOs, IT managers and developers do agree is that real-time streaming data analysis can have a positive impact on their company's bottom line.

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We are living in a post NSA-world (and I am a post-NSA girl...) and privacy is in the public consciousness more than ever before. After the government surveillance revelations that came courtesy of Eddy Snowden, most tech companies have been trying to stress to customers and clients just how willing they are to stand up for privacy.

But not BlackBerry. Company CEO John Chen has used a blog post to lash out at his contemporaries for supporting strong encryption. He makes a thinly-veiled reference to Apple, accusing that an unwillingness to comply with law enforcement requests put us all in a "dark place". Chen says that "our privacy commitment does not extend to criminals", seemingly failing to recognize that privacy is very much an all-or-nothing concept.

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There is roughly 685TB of private data from MongoDB instances sitting online, without any protection, researchers have uncovered.

Following the recent discovery by security researcher Chris Vickery, who saw the data of more than 13 million MacKeeper users exposed, another researcher ventured even deeper and found even more unprotected data.

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When I found out that there was a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero being sold, I rushed to buy one. I did no research as to what it was, but for such a paltry amount of money, I couldn't resist. For whatever reason, I even bought a case for it, which is arguably silly -- why protect such an inexpensive piece of tech?

When it finally arrived, I was impressed with the small size, but very disappointed overall. This may sound incredible, but the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero is just too damn expensive. Quite frankly, it is ridiculous that such a useless computer is being sold. Do you agree?

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Amazon continues to expand its footprint in the set-top box market, a place that has really become a three horse race. Both Amazon, Roku and Apple are all in it to win, but choice really comes down to the customer.

Now the retailer is launching a bunch of new channels to satisfy customer viewing needs. And this update isn't just video, it's also games.

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With the growth of mobile usage reaching 1.5 billion of users globally, consumers today have easy access to content about a brand, its products and services, as well as tools to quickly create and share opinions, photos and videos, across a variety of social media channels. However, out of all this content, we have recently seen numerous instances of brands fighting fraudulent forms of it. Amazon, for example, announced its plans to sue 1,114 fake reviewers, claiming that the brand reputation is being damaged by "false, misleading and inauthentic" reviews paid for by sellers seeking to improve the appeal of their product. This is the second suit by the online retailer this year, clearly showing that the proliferation of fraudulent online reviews is becoming a critical issue for businesses to address.

Yet consumers have not lost faith in online reviews -- in fact, a survey reveals online reviews impact 67.7 percent of respondents' purchasing decisions. More than half of the respondents (54.7 percent) also admitted that online reviews are fairly, very, or absolutely an important part of their decision-making process, showcasing how much consumers today value authentic peer to peer recommendations. Brands therefore need to take actions to ensure consumers can still rely on and have access to only authentic consumer-generated content (CGC), such as reviews.

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