Microsoft's Skype for Web (Beta) available worldwide, including Linux and Chromebooks
Skype is one of the most recognizable communication services in the world. Unfortunately, Microsoft has not yet perfected it; there is plenty of room for improvement. The company is arguably mishandling Skype, by killing the much maligned Modern UI version rather than fixing it.
Not all news about Skype is bad, however; last week, Microsoft announced that it was opening the web beta to all in the US and UK -- awesome news. Today, the company makes this announcement even better, by expanding it globally, including Linux distributions and Chrome OS (which is technically a Linux distro) for instant messaging.
Protecting data and people in the public sector
Another day, another media story about a public sector data breach. Whether it’s a filing cabinet containing confidential prison documents unwittingly sold at auction, private employee data accidentally posted online, or papers sent to the wrong person by mistake, invariably, the end result is that the media has a field day and the Information Commissioner issues yet another reprimand or fine.
Are things really this bad when it comes to information protection in the public sector? Well, yes and no. We recently completed a study of how public sector bodies across the UK manage their information. The findings reveal that one in four (23 percent) public sector organizations aren’t confident in their approach and recognize they are putting data at risk. Six in every ten (61 percent) say poor information handling has resulted in important documents being lost internally, and 40 percent have suffered an external data breach.
Watch Microsoft's E3 keynote live here
The annual E3 video game conference gets underway properly from tomorrow, but Microsoft’s press keynote takes place today, and you’ll be able to tune into it right here as it happens.
The company’s focus will, naturally, be on the Xbox One and Windows 10, but there will also be plenty of games announcements too -- Microsoft says we can expect to see "the greatest games lineup in Xbox history" this year.
HTC 'will not consider' a sale to ASUS, but it should
A couple of days ago, ASUS formally revealed that it has considered snapping up fellow Taiwanese maker HTC. An acquisition would make sense for both players, and the timing is right seeing as HTC's shares have been falling like rocks in the past couple of months, losing more than half their value in such a short period of time.
However, HTC, while not in a position of strength at the moment, claims that "it will not [even] consider" a sale to ASUS, likely because it does not want to admit it is in deep trouble and has no idea how to get out of this situation.
Sony Pictures hack caused accidental broadcast of expletive-filled movie
When Sony Pictures was hacked last year, one of the primary concerns for the company was the leaking of a number of unreleased movies. But in the UK, there were other consequences, including the daytime broadcast of the movie The Verdict complete with a smattering of four-letter expletives.
Sony Pictures Entertainment's subsidiary company Media Mix Limited owns the TV station Movie Mix, and on 14 December the channel broadcast an edit of the movie peppered with f-bombs. In the middle of the afternoon. The channel's excuse? That the "safe for daytime" broadcast version of the movie had been deleted by hackers.
Using technology to understand what makes bike riders so fast
The blurring of technology and sport is something that I have written about several times before and now have another perfect example to add to the list, this time in motorbike racing.
To celebrate the final day of the Isle of Man TT races, EMC Corporation is announcing the results of a data analysis competition designed to reveal exactly what makes one of the riders so fast.
The problems facing chief information officers
With technologies like cloud systems and big data increasingly in demand the role of the chief information officer (CIO) is evolving and throwing up new problems all the time.
Enterprise search company Lucidworks has produced an infographic looking at the changes most affecting CIOs and what can be done to embrace them.
Emoji could be used for your next PIN
The humble PIN is a common way to secure access to accounts, but it has one major problem -- it is, usually, limited to using the digits 0-9. A UK firm thinks it may have come up with a better solution: emoji-based PINs.
Intelligent Environments' Emoji Passcode system can be used to secure accounts with ideograms. The company argues that Emoji passcodes are not only easier to remember than number-based alternatives, but also more secure. This is thanks to the fact that there is a pool of 44 Emoji to choose from, and research also suggests people find it easier to remember images.
Download images from a Twitter account with dhIMG Twitter
It’s easy to browse the images on a Twitter account. Saving them is more of a challenge. Even the right-click menu may not have a "Save Image As" option.
DhIMG Twitter is a tiny free tool for Windows which avoids all these hassles by directly downloading the images (but not the videos) for a named account.
Five into one will go -- ARCTIC Smart Charger 8000 [Review]
Most of today's gadgets seem to use USB for charging their batteries so you inevitably end up with a whole stack of cables and the mains power adapters to go with them.
If you're looking to simplify things the Smart Charger 8000 from Swiss company ARCTIC may be the solution. It's a little box with five USB ports that allows you to charge a number of devices at the same time. It intelligently detects the devices connected to it in order to provide the best charging speed for each one.
Privacy concerns stand against wearable adoption
As more wearable devices continue to enter into the market and into our lives, questions are being raised as to how vulnerable this may be making us when it comes to potential security and privacy risks.
Smartphones already have the capacity to hold a large quantity of data about us as individuals and wearable technology is likely to work in a similar way -- with fitness trackers able to store information about our health, for example, or the routes taken during exercise sessions.
Manjaro Linux 0.8.13 is here
If you are a Linux desktop user, you probably have a favorite distribution. Sticking to one distro is a good option, as it is generally less stressful and easier to master. With that said, however, some people are distro hoppers; constantly trying new Linux-based operating systems. This can be fun too, but the downside is that you are in a constant state of change -- a solid foundation has its benefits.
There are pros and cons to both practices, but I would suggest a happy medium; stick with the operating system you love, but try other ones -- on the side -- to remain knowledgeable on the state of the Linux community. One such distro I suggest trying -- on a VM or separate partition -- is Manjaro. Hell, if you like the Arch-based OS, you may just commit to it full time. Today, the newest version, 0.8.13, sees release, featuring two of the best desktop environments -- XFCE 4.12 and KDE Plasma 5.3.1.
Snowden files hacked by China and Russia
UK secret services say that the encrypted files Edward Snowden held from his time working at the NSA have been accessed by intelligence agencies in China and Russia. The Sunday Times reports that the top secret files have been hacked meaning that British and American spies could be identified and located.
Wanted by US authorities, Snowden has been in hiding for some time now. It is believed that the time he spent seeking refuge in Hong Kong and Moscow may have given security official the opportunity to access the data he held. Although the data was protected, it is thought that the encryption was hacked, and US and UK intelligence services have been "forced to intervene and lift their agents from operations to prevent them from being identified and killed".
Nitro Pro 10 [Review]
Nitro Pro has been the budget alternative to Adobe’s expensive Acrobat PDF conversion and editing tool for a number of years now.
It’s been 18 months since Nitro Pro 9.0 was released, which added a smattering of minor new tools and refinements, and version 10 continues in the same vein, unveiling a handful of new tools, some useful improvements and the promise of better performance -- up to 40% faster in fact.
Disney's IT troubles go beyond H-1Bs
Disney has been in the news recently for firing its Orlando-based IT staff, replacing them with H-1B workers primarily from India, and making severance payments to those displaced workers dependent on the outgoing workers training their foreign replacements. I regret not jumping on this story earlier because I heard about it back in March, but an IT friend in Orlando (not from Disney) said it was old news so I didn’t follow-up. Well now I am following with what will eventually be three columns not just about this particular event but what it says about the US computer industry, which is not good.
First we need some context for this Disney event -- context that has not been provided in any of the accounts I have read so far. What we’re observing is a multi-step process.
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