Articles about Microsoft Teams

Following a complaint from Slack, Microsoft may have decided to stop bundling its Teams video conferencing software with Office.

A report says that the move comes as the Windows maker looks to avoid an antitrust investigation by the EU. The company has indicated its willingness to cooperate with the European Commission as it seeks to avoid further legal wranglings with the bloc.

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Users of Microsoft Teams have a new option to experiment with that can make meetings both more interesting and more private -- green screen.

The ability to change backgrounds in video chats is something that has been available in numerous apps for quite some time, but the results are patchy at best. With the arrival of support for cinema-style green screen though, Microsoft is upping the ante.

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Microsoft has launched a public preview of the new Microsoft Teams app for Windows. The app is the result of a "reimagining of Teams from the ground up", with the focus very much being on performance. It is being heralded as "the new era of Microsoft Teams" and sees the app not only performing better, but also being simplified to improve ease-of-use.

At the same time, the company has also started the rollout of Avatars for Microsoft Teams. The new feature gives users a different way to present themselves in online meetings -- a highly customizable 3D avatar instead of video.

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Microsoft has announced the general availability of video filters in its meeting software, Teams.

The arrival of filters complements the existing AI-powered options to change backgrounds and improve the appearance of videos. To deliver the new filters, Microsoft has created a dedicated app called Custom Filters which can be used to add animated frames to video, tweak appearance, and more.

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Video conferencing and collaboration tools like Zoom catapulted to popularity during the pandemic as organizations made the shift to remote working.

But data published today by Finbold shows that even as we return to more normal working patterns Zoom remains the most downloaded business app in the US, with Teams in second place.

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Amp up your collaboration skills and rock the modern workplace by harnessing the power of Microsoft 365 with this one-stop guide to the world's leading productivity platform.

The Microsoft 365 productivity solution for the workplace is a cloud-based service with many features for effective and secure collaboration virtually or in person. Whether you start your day with meetings in Teams, respond to Outlook emails, create documents with Office apps, or even automate your work with artificial intelligence, Microsoft 365 has you covered. But first, you must unlock the potential of this powerful solution to showcase your ability to keep up with the modern workplace and make an impact in your organization. To do that, you need Microsoft 365 For Dummies! 

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It is fair to say that the upcoming changes to Microsoft Teams are more than a little confusing. The impending launch of Microsoft Teams Premium means that various features that have been free so far, will only be available to those willing to pay a monthly or annual fee.

The existing free tier -- which Microsoft is now referring to as Microsoft Teams Free (classic) -- will vanish on April 12, 2023. There is a new free tier launching called, sightly puzzlingly, Microsoft Teams (free), but anyone opting for this will not only have to sign up for a new account, but will also lose access to the data associated with their old, free account.

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Microsoft has revealed details of an upcoming visual update to Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows which is due to hit general availability by the end of this quarter.

"Vivid" and "vibrant" are words Microsoft is using to describe the new look and feel that will be making its way to the software soon. A quintet of new themes will be added for greater customization options, and there are new buttons, an updated calendar and better alignment of interface appearance across Windows and Android.

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Back in October, Microsoft announced plans to launch Microsoft Teams Premium, a paid-for version of its meeting and collaboration software. Now we know that the Premium tier is due to launch next month, and that as of February some of the features and options that are currently available to everyone for free will only be available to Premium users.

Although a precise launch date has not yet been revealed, Microsoft has told partners that the current schedule has Microsoft Teams Premium launching in "early February 2023". The company has also said that "some Teams features will move from Teams licenses to Teams Premium licenses".

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Believe it or not, some desktop Linux users need to run Microsoft Teams for work. While I am sure Microsoft would prefer these users switch to Windows 11, that isn't always possible. And so, the company is throwing Linux users a bone.

Today, the Microsoft Teams progressive web app officially comes to Linux. This PWA is in addition to the normal version of the app -- it does not replace it (yet). Before you get too excited, however, there is a pretty big caveat -- you must be using either Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge web browsers. Firefox users are apparently out of luck.

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Two-thirds (66 percent) of security and compliance leaders are worried that their employees are using unmonitored communications channels, according to a new report.

The study from Theta Lake finds 67 percent of respondents expect the usage of collaboration tools and popular platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, Slack and RingCentral to increase.

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Recognizing the fact that many groups, organizations and work forces are made up of multi-lingual members from many countries, Microsoft has made language interpretation Generally Available for users of Microsoft Teams.

Rather than offering automatic translation of speech, language interpretation allows professional interpreters to convert what a speaker says into another language in real-time.

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Researchers from cybersecurity firm Vectra have issued a warning that Microsoft Teams stores authentication tokens in an unprotected form that could easily be abused by hackers.

The desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux all store authentication tokens in cleartext, and this can be used by an attacker to steal an identity and log into accounts. This is clearly worrying, but what is more concerning is Microsoft's reaction; the company says that the issue does not require "immediate servicing".

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The shift to working remotely has led to businesses relying increasingly on collaboration tools like Slack and Teams. But while these undoubtedly increase productivity they also introduce some extra risks.

We spoke to Brian Mannion, chief legal and data privacy officer at Aware, to find out about these risks and how enterprises can address them.

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With more people working remotely, messaging and email have become even more essential tools, but the sharing of sensitive data via these routes also presents risks.

Concentric AI is using this week's Black Hat USA to launch an AI-based solution that protects sensitive data shared as text or attachments across today’s most popular business messaging platforms, including email, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.

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