Latest Technology News

Raspberry Pi owners are being warned that the officially supported Raspberry Pi OS installs a Microsoft repo without notification.

A recent update to the Debian Linux-based operating system -- previously known as Raspbian -- secretly installs a Microsoft apt repository that can call home to the company's servers. For anyone concerned about telemetry in general, or who is trying to avoid contact with the Windows maker, this is clearly not good news and raises questions about trust.

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A few weeks ago, we wrote about a bug in Windows 10 which could lead to an NTFS drive being formatted simply by opening a folder. The issue affects the $i30 NTFS attribute, and it can be triggered in Explorer as well as web browsers.

Now Mozilla has released a key update to Firefox which prevents it from activating the bug. To be protected, you need to be running at least Firefox 85.0.1.

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Microsoft has acknowledged that two recent updates for Windows 10 are causing problems for users. People who have installed KB4598299 and KB4598301 are reporting BSoDs as well as app crashes.

The two updates (released Windows 10 versions 1909, 2004 and 20H2) were supposed to address issues in .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8, but they have -- as is increasingly common with Windows updates -- introduced new problems of their own.

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Mageia 8 has been in development for a while now, and fans of that Linux-based operating system are likely chomping at the bit for a stable release. Back in August, we shared that the first Beta of the distribution was available for testing, and then, the second Beta came out in December.

And now, finally, the first release candidate arrives. As with the Beta releases, RC1 is available with your choice of three desktop environments --  KDE Plasma, GNOME, and Xfce. It seems Mate is a post-install option, but there is no dedicated ISO for it like the aforementioned trio of DEs.

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It is only a few days since Microsoft released PowerToys 0.31.1, but there is already a new version for you to install.

While there are no major changes in the latest release of the utility suite, does include important bug fixes. Microsoft detected issues with the FancyZones PowerToy, and deemed them significant enough to push out this patch release.

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Since adopting the Chromium engine, Microsoft Edge has come on in leaps and bounds. Much like Internet Explorer before it, the original version of the browser was much maligned, and now the time has come to retire it.

For some time, Microsoft has been trying to encourage hangers-on to migrate to the Chromium-based version of Edge, and now it's time for drastic action. In an upcoming update to Windows 10, the company is getting rid of legacy Edge once and for all.

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Microsoft has set out its plans for WinUI 3.0 which is due to ship later this year. Described as the "modern native UI platform of Windows", WinUI is the C++-based library of controls and Fluent styles that empowers developers to create a new breed of apps.

The company has shared details of the roadmap for WinUI, explaining how version 3.0 will expand into a full UX framework. It is part of Project Reunion which sees Microsoft bringing together a unified set of tools and APIs to make it easy to develop apps for different Windows 10 devices.

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Thunderbolt docks are useful devices that make it easy to transform a laptop computer into a desktop while also charging the battery. For years now, manufacturers have been releasing these docks, and while there have been many good ones, none are perfect. And yes, perfection is possible.

Gaming company Razer has announced its all-new "Thunderbolt 4 Dock Chroma," and it probably comes closer to perfection than any other dock I have seen. Unfortunately, it falls short due to a design flaw.

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We’ve all heard of the classic golden rule. For most of us, our parents would preach to us to "treat others the way we want to be treated," or another one of life's cliches. But the idea of a golden rule has gone a step further and is impacting modern business. There’s now the golden rules to cloud migration. As enterprises prepare for the future, many are continuing to look for​ ways to modernize their IT operations due to the cloud’s convenience, flexibility and scalability.

Migrating to the cloud from a traditional, physical infrastructure, is easier said than done as many business leaders know. This is why the seven gold rules are so critical to enterprises’ migration success. Let’s take a closer look at each rule:

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Adaptability to changing conditions is a must-have trait for today’s organizations, especially during today’s uncertain world. Business leaders must prioritize adaptability as a must-have organizational trait, and as disruption accelerates, there is no guarantee that the biggest and toughest industry players will survive. 

Organizations that understand their environments and are positioned to sense change and adapt are the most likely to survive in the event of disruptions. 

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A serious security vulnerability has been discovered in Chrome, forcing Google to push out an emergency update to the browser. Affecting the Windows, Mac and Linux versions of Chrome, the high severity vulnerability is being tracked as CVE-2021-21148.

Described as a "heap buffer overflow in V8", it is being actively exploited in the wild, although few details of the exploit are available. Because of the severity of the vulnerability, Google has released a fix and is urging everyone to install it.

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Remember Bufferbloat? It’s a subject I was among the first to write about a decade ago, starting with a prediction column just like this one in 2011. The problem at the time was that every video or audio application -- the big bandwidth consumers -- was trying to solve performance issues through pre-buffering. You’d launch Netflix (just one example -- they all did it) and it would pause for a few seconds filling a huge buffer intended to smooth-out any playing glitches. Except performance didn’t improve and in fact got worse because of buffers buffering buffers. These extra buffers were defeating TCP/IP’s own flow control mechanisms, often leading to total failure of the connection. Jim Gettys from Bell Labs called it Bufferbloat, then Jim and Dave Taht spent the next three years or so fixing the problem, or so they thought.

Well Bufferbloat is back.

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Microsoft has changed the status of both Windows 10 version 2004 and version 1909, marking them as being ready for "broad deployment".

In the case of Windows 10 version 1909 (or Windows 10 November 2019 Update), the company says it is "designated ready for broad deployment for all users via Windows Update". For Windows 10 version 2004 (aka Windows 10 May 2020 Update), however, the status has been updated to indicate that it is merely "designated for broad deployment". And there is a reason for the difference between the two.

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Four-hundred-twenty-four in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Microsoft Store in the past seven days.

The next feature update for Windows 10, version 21H1, may have a later release date than expected, as it could be released in May or June.

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New and updated privacy legislation is being launched around the world and a key component of these acts is breach notification requirements, which mean a business is required to notify individuals when their information falls into the hands of an attacker.

We spoke to Ralph Nickl, founder and CEO of Canopy Software to find out what what enterprises and consumers need to know about these laws and the challenges that compliance brings.

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