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22 articles, 2016-04-03 12:01 1 delivers enterprise-class ERP to the cloud REDMOND, Wash. — March 9, 2016 — Microsoft Corp... 2016-04-03 08:20 7KB news.microsoft.com 2 Black Duck Names Open-Source Rookies of the Year The 2015 Open-Source Rookies class reflects three technologies shaping open-source software's future: Docker containers, open collaboration and AI. 2016-04-03 06:24 1KB www.eweek.com 3 FileHippo News - powered by FeedBurner That’s right, adblocking may be coming to Redmond’s flagship browser in the next scheduled release for its replacement. If it happens... 2016-04-02 22:04 22KB feeds2.feedburner.com 4 Hadoop Creator Cutting Talks Big Data Past, Present, Future Hadoop creator Doug Cutting led off the keynote addresses at the Strata + Hadoop event in San Jose on March 30, marking the 10th anniversary of the big data technology and talking about what the future may hold. 2016-04-03 07:11 4KB www.informationweek.com 5 The Internet Association announces support for controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership deal When a deal was reached on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) last year, activists called the agreement the “biggest global threat to the internet,” claiming it would bring massive new online restrictions around the world. 2016-04-03 08:20 2KB www.techspot.com 6 Upstream oil and gas companies spend smarter on digital technologies to drive value, reduce costs in downturn, Accenture and Microsoft survey finds HOUSTON — March 9, 2016 — As upstream oil and gas companies scrutinize every dollar invested, they’re spending smarter today on digital technologies, seeking... 2016-04-03 08:20 6KB news.microsoft.com 7 Google glitch translates 'Russian Federation' into 'Mordor'; it has a ring to it Irony alert: Google Translate bug brands Russians as occupiers when translating from Ukrainian 2016-04-03 08:13 3KB www.v3.co.uk 8 Microsoft Positions Cortana, Skype, AI As 'Future Of Communications' Microsoft is exploring new communication technologies with updates to Skype, Cortana and artificial intelligence. 2016-04-03 00:05 4KB www.informationweek.com 9 Turn your PC into a wifi hotspot with NirSoft’s HostedNetworkStarter NirSoft has released HostedNetworkStarter, a free tool which turns your wifi-enabled PC or laptop into a wireless hotspot. NirSoft has released HostedNetworkStarter, a free tool which turns your wifi-enabled PC or laptop into a wireless hotspot. There’s no installation required, no network drivers or anything els… 2016-04-02 23:05 1KB feeds.betanews.com 10 The gig economy as a driver of innovation If you are reading this article, chances are you have taken an Uber, are familiar with Upwork and maybe even sold something on Etsy. Business models that fall.. 2016-04-02 20:16 4KB feedproxy.google.com

11 5 apps that could help you in an earthquake Several countries have been conducting earthquake drills and various forms of disaster preparedness activities in anticipation of this potentially cataclysmic.. 2016-04-02 20:16 1KB feedproxy.google.com 12 Moneyball is dead. Long live Moneyball! While it seems the term has been around baseball forever, the concept of “moneyball” – coined to describe the Oakland Athletics’ approach to building.. 2016-04-02 20:16 6KB feedproxy.google.com 13 The death of ‘Internet’ On April 2, the folks responsible for the entries in the Associated Press Stylebook announced that the word “Internet” will no longer be uppercased, thus.. 2016-04-02 20:16 1KB feedproxy.google.com 14 Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, gets some upgrades TechCrunch went out to the ballpark this week — specifically Citi Field, home of the New York Mets. Granted, it wasn't the most tech-centric event, but.. 2016-04-02 20:16 992Bytes feedproxy.google.com 15 How to approach machine learning as a non-technical person The last few years have seen an explosion of interest in machine learning technology and potential applications. As a non-expert you've probably either had to.. 2016-04-02 20:16 5KB feedproxy.google.com 16 11 TechCrunch stories you don’t want to miss this week This week, Tesla unveiled a brand new model, Oculus Rift shipped, Snapchat saw a major upgrade and the Apple vs. FBI case came to a close. These are this.. 2016-04-02 20:16 3KB feedproxy.google.com 17 Spotify suffers notable hour-long outage for many users Breathe that weekend air, Saturday is here in most parts of the world! Great time to put on some music and relax, except, that is, if you're a Spotify user.. 2016-04-02 20:16 2KB feedproxy.google.com 18 10 'ARGH!' moments every computer user experiences Computers make life easier, right? Computers are fun, valuable tools, yeah? True, but they can also be such utterly infuriately pieces of tech that they seem to serve no purpose other than to raise our blood pressure and drive us mad. Computers make... 2016-04-02 13:56 6KB feeds.betanews.com 19 Google announces 24-inch Acer Chromebase all-in-one video conference system In an effort to increase productivity for enterprise users during professional meetings, Google has launched an all-in-one video conferencing device, the Acer Chromebase. 2016-04-02 13:40 1KB feedproxy.google.com 20 GLOBAL GIVEAWAY: Win one of 10 Tronsmart Titan Quick Charge 2.0 desktop charging stations Struggling for power for all your devices at the desktop? Or do you simply want a single source to charge up? Here is your chance to win a Titan of your very own! 2016-04-02 13:24 1KB feedproxy.google.com 21 Gartner: PC shipments to bottom out, smartphone sales to increase by only 7% in 2016 Gartner has published a new report predicting that PC shipments will finally bottom out in 2016 but smartphone market will increase only by 7%, its first single-digit growth up till now. 2016-04-02 13:08 2KB feedproxy.google.com 22 7 Days: A week of Building , Bots, Holograms and 'Almost Perfect' Galaxys It's been a pretty crazy and exciting week in the world of tech as Microsoft held its biggest developer conference of the year. We saw holograms, talked to bots, and caught up with technology. 2016-04-02 12:52 13KB feedproxy.google.com Articles

22 articles, 2016-04-03 12:01

1 Microsoft delivers enterprise-class ERP to the cloud REDMOND, Wash. — March 9, 2016 — Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced that its next-generation cloud ERP solution, AX, built on and for , is now available in 137 markets in 40 languages. The enterprise-class business application brings the power, speed and intelligence of cloud computing to people and organizations to achieve more. “Customers from around the world are using the cloud in incredible ways to accelerate and transform their business,” said , executive vice president, Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise. “Today’s release is an exciting milestone extending Microsoft’s business cloud offerings. It’s now possible for organizations to run their entire business in the cloud with Microsoft — from productivity with Office 365, to business analytics with Power BI and Cortana Analytics Suite, customer engagement with Dynamics CRM and business operations with Dynamics AX.” Customers across the globe are already using Dynamics AX to run their business processes in the cloud — from single domains like human resources and manufacturing to end-to-end business. Companies already live in production include Hagler Systems , Haldex , Icon , Renault Sport Formula One Team , Priva , Smiles , Travel Alberta and Umbra Group. The new Dynamics AX moves beyond traditional business solutions and brings ERP, business intelligence, infrastructure and database services together in a single offering, empowering organizations to run industry-specific and operational business processes that are extendable with specific solutions from partners. Wednesday, Microsoft announced more than 50 ISV solutions that are available on the Azure Marketplace. These Microsoft-curated, pre-configured industry and vertical solutions help customers discover and implement the solution they need quicker than ever before and, like Dynamics AX, enable fast consumption of updates and improvements. In addition to the 50-plus solutions already available, hundreds are in development today. The new Dynamics AX takes the capabilities of Lifecycle Services (LCS) to the next level. Businesses will be able to combine the best practices for their mission-critical apps with the flexibility and simplicity of upgrade via the cloud. With LCS, Dynamics AX will formalize the concepts of development, test and production, making the ongoing upgrade quicker to implement and deploy and easier to manage. “Lifecycle Services represents a shift in how companies manage the life cycle of an ERP system in a way that’s never really been done before,” said Josh Greenbaum, principal analyst, Enterprise Application Consulting. “The ability to test in the cloud and use the cloud’s natural elasticity and functionality to take the test, flip a switch and make it the actual production environment, that truly is magic.” Harnessing the power of the Azure cloud, Dynamics AX provides enhanced security along with global availability and scale, enabling businesses and people to work more safely anywhere, anytime while respecting the data sovereignty requirements of global customers no matter where in the globe they operate. “We do everything through Dynamics AX now; we manage virtually all of our operations,” said Thomas Mayer, chief operating office, Renault Sport Formula One Team. “Having what I need to run my business available anywhere in the world is invaluable.” “We are bringing massive amounts of data into our business to help control building climates and horticulture environments. That is a huge business transformation, and the cloud was the only way forward for us to make that real,” said Paul Ossewold, vice president, Digital Operations, Priva. “To manage our company with 10 offices around the world, we need systems that are fast. That is what Dynamics AX in the cloud is giving us, and we couldn’t be more excited to be one of the first customers on board to take advantage of this new solution.” Modern solution for modern businesses Dynamics AX delivers a simple, beautiful, and modern user interface that is touch-enabled for the devices people use today. People can interact with the system with ease, as Dynamics AX works like other Microsoft applications that people are used to, increasing adoption and usage. The new intelligent user experience is also optimized to deliver value to organizations through the ability to make smarter decisions with increased speed. “ERP is core to our business operations and critical to building and delivering products to our customers,” said Ben Hagler, co-founder, Hagler Systems. “We chose Dynamics AX because of its robustness. The UI is amazing and available anywhere. It makes us device-independent. We can get work done everywhere with increased speed.” Dynamics AX delivers the proven business logic of a complete business suite, enhanced with new constructs such as Workspaces that provide a collaborative canvas unifying key performance indicators, business intelligence, views of critical data, processes and actions to power business user productivity. The Financial Period Close Workspace, for example, dramatically streamlines this critical, complex process. Software vendors that partner with Microsoft have expressed their excitement over the potential this new solution offers the industry, representing a turning point in the ERP industry as cloud ERP solutions are adopted by customers to run their business-critical operations. “This release is further proof that Microsoft is leading the charge with innovations not just in ERP but in cloud,” said CEO Peter ter Maaten from Microsoft partner HSO. “Dynamics AX will be a game changer for enterprise customers.” Customers can sign up for the service today as the new release is available as a monthly subscription in three simple versions that include a self-serve user, a Task user and an Enterprise user. Businesses can get up and running quickly and match their business growth easily by adding business processes and users with this simple and transparent pay-as-you-go model. More information can be found by visiting the Dynamics AX website. Those who want to see the product in action and the impact it is having for businesses can view the Dynamics AX virtual launch event. Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts . 2016-04-03 08:20 By Microsoft

2 Black Duck Names Open-Source Rookies of the Year Black Duck , which provides automated solutions for securing and managing open-source software, has announced its annual Open Source Rookies of the Year awards, recognizing the top new open-source projects initiated in 2015. Patrick Carey, Black Duck's director of product management, who headed the selection process, said the chosen projects show how diverse and ambitious open-source software development has become. "This year's Rookies are impressive examples of how far open source has come, with start-ups like Mattermost and Glucosio as well as big players like Google, and Red Hat leveraging the open-source community to help drive innovation in everything from DevOps and Docker container solutions to diabetes monitoring and real-time communication," he said. The 2015 Rookies class reflects three hot technologies shaping the future of open-source software: Docker containers, open collaboration and artificial intelligence. In 2014, a number of Docker ecosystem players emerged, and the trend continued into 2015 with several, including projects sponsored by Red Hat and Capital One. This eWEEK slide show looks at the winners and honorable mentions of the 2015 Black Duck Rookie of the Year awards. 2016-04-03 06:24 Darryl K

3 FileHippo News - powered by FeedBurner That’s right, adblocking may be coming to Redmond’s flagship browser in the next scheduled release for its Internet Explorer replacement. If it happens, Microsoft will become another high profile tech firm that allows for adblocking software as standard. This new feature for Edge would mean that web users would no longer need the 3 rd party extension AdBlock or AdBlock Plus, and would further annoy and concern publishers and website owners that rely on the revenue from online ads to survive. Despite the fact that Google and Google’s Chrome browser is the world’s preferred way to surf the web, Microsoft still have a substantial subset proportion of the market, especially among enterprise users. According to Microsoft themselves, there are currently over 200 million devices running Windows 1o worldwide, and that number is growing. And of course, the Edge browser comes as standard with Windows 1o, whether users choose to use Bing or Google to do their surfing. News of feature has spread quickly after Cotton spotted the new extension at a Microsoft Build conference, called “What’s Next for Microsoft’s New Browser,” – in one slide that seemed to show the next version of Edge would include adblocking capability when it is released. While adblocking was for many years primarily only of benefit mainly to the tech heads of the world, in recent times, it has become much more popular among users. The growth in adblocking has risen greatly in the last few years. Toward the end of last year, Apple , brought the concept to most its ‘i’ users by allowing its latest version of its own browser, Safari, to carry third party adblockers. In January of this year, a Mozilla Co-Founder, launched Brave , a web browser that came with adblocking built in and turned on as standard. Apple’s entry to the adblocking world came as no surprise to many, as it still makes the majority of its profits from hardware sales, while Mozilla and its creators have always had a fairly egalitarian approach to the web. Unsurprisingly, Google, who rely on advertising for more than 90% of its revenue, has not released plans for its own built in adblocking software. As Mr. Bott notes at the bottom of his article: “It remains to be seen how the new ad-blocking features will work. But with new features expected to arrive in Windows 10 preview builds in the coming weeks, we probably will know soon.” Time will tell. The post Microsoft To Go To The Edge To Offer Adblocking appeared first on FileHippo News . One of the best innovations in the connected internet revolution has got to be the way that companies can tap into the greatest workforce possible, regardless of geography. Telecommuting is allowing even the smallest startup to reach team members literally anywhere around the planet, giving them a manpower edge that many new companies didn’t have even ten years ago. But whether a company’s team works together in the same office or is scattered across three continents and eight different time zones, there is a fundamental problem with any group effort: real-time, secure communication. That’s where the rise in popularity in collaborative software comes in, and one of the names at the forefront is Asana. Founded by two well-known names in digital engineering–one of them a co-founder of Facebook–Asana was named one of the top twenty collaborative software options by business software group Capterra, and has already grabbed some major name customers like Zappos, Facebook, Groupon, and more. How many more? Around 13,000 different paying subscribers, all connecting on projects ranging from the frivolous to the closely guarded game changer. In a recent blog post , the founders explained why their focus on a streamlined workflow product was so crucial: because there wasn’t anything reliably useful when they needed it in previous jobs: “Asana has been our attempt to solve the pain of work about work, letting organizations easily achieve their goals, or take on bigger ones. We call that solution ‘work tracking,’ software that manages who’s responsible for what by when, and generally serves as the source of truth for everything a team is working on. We—now a team of 186 people—have collectively invested so much love and hard work into this attempt, it’s hard to articulate how gratifying it feels to step back and see that it’s actually…working.” One goal for the new investment series is to work on creating a “bigger is better” version of the current application. While most people think of a narrowly focused team working through software like Asana, the company already has several large-base clients with very broad needs. Zappos uses the software across its entire company, not just within one group, like product development. An article on Asana’s recent Series C investment also cited city governments that are using Asana to replace the old inter-office email system, meaning the entire city workforce is connected through this software. The post Asana Raises $50M In Latest Investment Round appeared first on FileHippo News . From now on, the MIT Media Lab will release its software via FLOSS: (Free Libre Open-Source Software) The move was announced by Media Lab director, Joi Ho, in a blog post last weekend: “I’m proud to announce that we are changing our internal procedures to encourage more free and open-source software.” Ho hopes that by changing the way they they approach software, it will allow students to free up the code they write so there will be no need for approval from either internal or external administrative hurdles. In doing so, Ho argues that this will align MIT more closely with its core altruistic academic values, that in essence asserts that knowledge should be shared, tested, and externally validated by its peers. “Previously, software releases using free and open source licenses were approved by an internal committee. But since we’ve always allowed our developers to open-source their work, we’re eliminating the unnecessary hurdle: from now on any open source request will be viewed as the default and automatically approved….“We respect the autonomy of our community members and will continue to let them choose whether to release their software as proprietary or open. But removing the open source approval step will level the playing field.” MIT Media Lab’s announcement was met with a positive response from the online community, especially from supporters and advocates of free and open-source software in general, such as the free OS, Linux, and its variants. The post MIT Media Lab Goes Open Source, And Doesn’t Forget To FLOSS appeared first on FileHippo News . The move comes after Microsoft found not only are macro based attacks on the rise , but that a massive 98% of all malware attacks against Office, were macro based. Microsoft are quite keen to point out that that 98% figure applies to malware attempts as opposed to actual infections, but well, you get the picture. “The enduring appeal for macro-based malware appears to rely on a victim’s likelihood to enable macros.” The new feature allows IT administrators to easily block and prevent networked users from enabling macros in what they might consider to be ‘high risk’ scenarios. The result now, is that even when an employee attempts to leave Office protected view, they will be prevented from doing so, and then informed about the risks they potentially face. Of course, the term ‘high risk’ is subjective, and can often depend on the personal zeal level of the admin in question, but generally it could include docs downloaded directly from the internet or communal cloud storage lockers, or even documents attached to emails originating from outside a secure network. “For end-users, we always recommend that you don’t enable macros on documents you receive from a source you do not trust or know, and be careful even with macros in attachments from people you do trust – in case they’ve been hacked.” This was good advice before Office received its new macro protection, and its good advice now, as well. The post Microsoft Takes Macro Protection Action appeared first on FileHippo News . If you’re looking for an all-in-one tool for redesigning and sharing your digital photos–while still not requiring a degree in graphic design to work it…looking at you, expensive photo editing software–then look no further than FotoJet. This free tool gives you multiple options for creating collage, email headers, Instagram posts with professional-looking text, and more, while producing results that look like they were rendered in the studio. FotoJet offers more than 500 uniquely creative collage templates and over 80 different classic collage layouts. Of course, if you have a little more know-how and want to design something truly personal, you can build your own design from the ground up using the themed templates provided, like the Collage or Photo Card. There are even tools that are specifically intended for social media needs, like a Facebook cover image generator, a standard Facebook post template, a Twitter header, and a YouTube channel cover image creator. The tool even offers some fun options, like incorporating your images into a magazine cover, for example; your wedding photos can be introduced via a People magazine cover a’ la the latest royal or celebrity wedding spread. One particular favorite is the wide variety of customizeable holiday cards that put some of the expensive services to shame. Finally, the collage template options range from the light-hearted and silly to the studio-quality portrait work, all of which you can easily make your own by “choosing a template, adding your own photos, freely editing and customizing the template with text or clipart images, and then saving or sharing your work.” For those who have a little more expertise when it comes to creating a digital product, the Classic mode lets you choose from a variety of pre-formed drag-and-drop options, much like a newsletter layout. Select the number of boxes you want, fill the boxes with your content, text, or clip art, and create. One of the most attractive things about FotoJet is its fully browser-based workflow. There’s no software to download, no upgrades or updates to keep up with, just an easy to click and intuitive builder that let’s you produce an attractive, professional-looking end result in minutes. To sign up for FotoJet’s free service, check out the site by clicking HERE. The post FotoJet Makes Digital Photo Sharing Easy appeared first on FileHippo News . When hackers first stumbled upon the treasure trove of personal identifiable information that hospitals, medical centers, and doctors’ offices collected on their patients, the entire industry became a target for identity theft. With an afternoon’s worth of hacking, thieves could make off with hundreds of thousands of patients’ records; if the medical center complex was connected by a shared network, the number of affected victims in a single hacking event could even reach the millions. But hackers have a new tool at their disposal, thanks to the punishment that a medical center faces if they become the victims of a data breach (yes, if a hacker infiltrates their network, even in spite of strict security protocols, the hospital can be held responsible for the HIPAA violation associated with exposing patients’ confidential records). With the massive fines and penalties associated with a patient privacy violation, hackers have now learned that there’s serious money to be made from ransomware. In a ransomware attack, not only is the hospital facing punitive monetary damages, but with patient records under lock and key, there’s the very real threat of to human life (and then the resulting lawsuits associated with that); several hospitals have been reduced to the Stone Age paper-and-pen records systems just to continue providing care during a ransomware attack, and one California hospital so far this year has already paid the hackers in Bitcoin to unlock its network in order to continue helping its patients. At the same time, the medical industry can be hit hard by a single hacking event, which is why thieves are going after the industry in such a big way. UCLA Health, which had 4.5 million patient records breached in a single event, stated in its notification letter that it blocks “millions” of known hacking attempts every year. The next big thing in IT and software development? Creating an impenetrable medical records network that will allow hospitals to continue meeting the needs of the sick and injured while keeping hackers at bay. If even the FBI couldn’t get into an outdated iPhone, surely there’s a team who can write a code that will prevent this type of crime. The post Taking Hospitals Hostage With Ransomware appeared first on FileHippo News . The scientists found that the majority of participants reacted to the reminders and provided stimulus by suppressing their opinions and true feelings on topics that they considered to be either non-mainstream, or where they thought they would find themselves in the minority. In effect, it highlights the reasons why many governments would rather their citizens didn’t know that were under an umbrella of state surveillance. The study lends itself to the social-studies phenomenon known as the ‘spiral of silence.’ In the US, whistle-blower, Edward Snowden has been credited with helping create a ‘spiral of silence’ there after his revelations revealed to the American public just how ingrained the culture of surveillance had become entrenched in the years after 9/11. The study found subjects who were “primed of government surveillance significantly reduced the likelihood of speaking out in hostile opinion climates. These findings introduce important theoretical and normative consequences. Theoretically, it adds a new layer of chilling effects to the spiral of silence. This is the first study to provide empirical evidence that the government’s online surveillance programs may threaten the disclosure of minority views and contribute to the reinforcement of majority opinion.” The idea behind the ‘spiral,’ is that people avoid stating a true opinion on a subject to fit in with ‘friends’ on social media, and also not to bring attention to themselves from listening government ears. Lead researcher of the study, Elizabeth Stoycheff, said she was concerned about what her team discovered when their experiment had concluded: “It concerns me that surveillance seems to be enabling a culture of self-censorship because it further disenfranchises minority groups. And it is difficult to protect and extend the rights of these vulnerable populations when their voices aren’t part of the discussion. Democracy thrives on a diversity of ideas, and self-censorship starves it…. Shifting this discussion so Americans understand that civil liberties are just as fundamental to the country’s long-term well-being as thwarting very terrorist attacks is a necessary move.” So much for democracy and the internet. The post Digital Mass Surveillance Silences Dissenters appeared first on FileHippo News . The apology comes after Tay’s first 24 hours of freedom online last week saw her at turns deny the holocaust and also suggest casual linkages between feminism, and cancer. Despite exhaustive testing and implementing contingency protocols in her design, Microsoft state that they had not anticipated the actions of a subset of Twitter users and had “made a critical oversight for this specific attack. As a result, Tay tweeted wildly inappropriate and reprehensible words and images.” Microsoft also took the opportunity to state that they would only revive Tay if its engineers could essentially prevent or undermine internet trolling from shaping the AI in a negative manner. This is the second apology Microsoft have issued. The first was short and to the point, pointing out as it did, that Tay was an experiment, and a ‘learning machine…[so]…some of its responses are inappropriate and indicative of the types of interactions some people are having with it.” The idea behind Tay was that the chatbot would become smarter with each passing human the AI conversed with. What the designers didn’t factor into her programming was the capacity for the internet to troll. “We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Tay,” said a spokesman for Microsoft. “ To do AI right, one needs to iterate with many people and often in public forums. We must enter each one with great caution and ultimately learn and improve, step by step, and to do this without offending people in the process. We will remain steadfast in our efforts to learn from this and other experiences as we work toward contributing to an Internet that represents the best, not the worst, of humanity.” In short, this was probably Microsoft’s way of saying: F***** internet trolls. The post Microsoft Formally Apologizes For Tay, It’s Offensive Teenage Chatbot appeared first on FileHippo News . When John F. Kennedy, Jr., announced rather ambitiously that the US would put a man on the moon within only a matter of years, the reactions were part awed, part derisive. Some saw it as the limitless ability of the best minds coming together, others laughed at the ludicrous idea that a human could walk on the moon…and live to tell about it. Now, the concept of space travel–even within the fairly small limits that we’ve actually achieved– has become commonplace to a generation of people who’ve never been alive when the space program wasn’t a reality. That could be why so little attention among popular news has been granted to NASA’s attempts–very, very expensive attempts–at sending humans to Mars. As part of its deep-space exploration project , the concept of human space travel has to be completely redesigned. Yes, Mars is simply that far away, and the orbital patterns that the planets adhere to means the closest proximity between Earth and Mars only happens every two years, and even then only for a narrow window of time. Everything NASA has used to safely send and retrieve astronauts had to be redesigned, down to the software that would make it all happen. That software is proving to be quite problematic, too. Already 77% more than initial cost estimates predicted, the final bill for the software that will launch and control an SLS rocket and Orion capsule is expected to come in at a little over $200 million. Even more upsetting is the timeline: instead of having a finished version this summer, engineers are now saying it will be closer to fall of next year before there’s a working version. Unfortunately, an internal audit of the status of this software once again proved something that has long plagued the organization, and that’s an unwillingness to bend. The audit, conducted by none other than NASA’s inspector general, concluded that the administration is essentially shooting itself in the foot with its own optimism, while commercial software would have been a much better option than writing the software from the ground up by splicing together previous NASA code. The post NASA Mars Software Over Budget, Under Performing appeared first on FileHippo News . Digital photography buffs rejoice! There’s news from the world of photo editing software that has amateurs and pros alike celebrating. To understand the cause for excitement, let’s back up. Google acquired what it dubbed the Nik Collection about four years ago in an effort to get one popular mobile app, Snapseed. This app basically let you apply Instagram-style filters to all of your photographs without having to do it in the upload process. This was a great tool for Google’s mobile tech. But with the Snapseed deal, Google manage to nab several other desktop applications that it then bundled into a photo editing suite called Nik Collection. This suite, while still cheaper than full-fledged versions of Photoshop and other industry standard tools, came with a $149 price tag. That’s a bargain if you do this professionally, but kind of out of reach for someone who just wants to make their personal photos look their best. According to a post from Google, “The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins that provide a powerful range of photo editing capabilities — from filter applications that improve color correction, to retouching and creative effects, to image sharpening that brings out all the hidden details, to the ability to make adjustments to the color and tonality of images.” But Google has now announced a monumental revelation about Nik: not only is it now available for free, but if you purchased the full-price version this year, you’re eligible for an automatic refund. That may not be good news for users who jumped on board early after Google’s acquisition, but it’s still taking the concept of open-source a step farther than most companies would go. Of course, there are some immediate concerns about the value of this download. Some users have already questioned whether this means there will be no further support or updates for the software, as well as voiced concerns about compatibility with future OS updates and upgrades. Why is Google giving away something that is already well-respected in its field? Their announcement offers a little bit of insight into their focus shift for the Nik side of business. “As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed, we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free, so that now anyone can use it.” The post Nik Collection Photo Editing Software Now Free appeared first on FileHippo News . 2016-04-02 22:04 feeds2.feedburner

4 Hadoop Creator Cutting Talks Big Data Past, Present, Future Apache Hadoop has moved from a fledgling technology championed by open source advocates to a platform that has increasingly become mainstream in enterprise IT shops over the last 10 years since it was initially created. In a keynote address on March 30 at the Strata + Hadoop conference in San Jose, Doug Cutting, Hadoop creator and chief architect at Hadoop distributor Cloudera, provided an informal State of Hadoop and Big Data address, looking back at the last 10 years and forward to what the future may hold for big data. "It used to be different between open source and enterprise," Cutting told attendees during an address that led off the morning keynotes -- with open source "hippies" attending O'Reilly conferences while enterprise IT focused their attention and budgets elsewhere. "Now we've seen a merger of these communities -- enterprise and hacker. " Several factors combined to bring big data and Hadoop to this moment, he said, including the inexpensive hardware driven by the PC revolution and the open source community that created standards and turned these platforms into something that people could use at a very low cost. "We had all the ingredients to really begin this change to ignite this revolution," he said. "Hadoop was the first to combine this into a single system. " The elements of that system have essentially remained the same over the past 10 years -- the HDSF storage system, YARN scheduler, and MapReduce execution engine. But over those 10 years more technologies have been introduced to improve Hadoop, including Apache Spark, which many organizations are now using instead of MapReduce. Create a culture where technology advances truly empower your business. Attend the Leadership Track at Interop Las Vegas, May 2-6. Register now! "Technologies have developed around the [Hadoop] kernel," Cutting said. "And that's what will survive longer than the Hadoop project itself. A new family of technology has arrived, and a great example of that is Spark… Spark came out of the University at Berkeley. It didn't come out of a business. It came about because folks found it useful. We are seeing this again and again. " Cutting said that the Hadoop ecosystem will see this again and again. There's competition for the best technologies at the storage level and at the query level and in other areas, too. As these new technologies arrive, they will improve the whole. "Hadoop's legacy is creating a new way of developing an ecosystem with collaboration," he said. Today the hardware and software needed to run Hadoop is available at a much lower cost, and the system itself is much more scalable, Cutting said, with systems regularly scaling to tens of petabytes. The technology is part of what is driving changes across all industries as they move to digital operations and customer service. "Banks, insurance companies, manufacturers, retailers, and healthcare providers are adopting data technologies not at the periphery, but at the center of the business," Cutting said. "Data is becoming the fundamental driver of economic growth for the century. " Cutting provided a few predictions for Hadoop and big data in the next 10 years, too. Beyond the software stack, he said that he believes big data will get a boost from improvements to computer hardware. For instance, he said, Intel has created a new memory technology called 3D XPoint that improves memory speed. "We've grown up with systems where the primary bottleneck was I/O," he said. "We are going to have the majority of data sets stored in memory, and that's going to change the applications that we can build. " Cutting also said that cloud computing has reached maturity, noting that Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched at around the same time as Hadoop and has gone through a similar adoption curve. More companies are now storing data in the cloud, he said. "But the biggest change in the next 10 years is not going to be something I can predict, but will be things that you are involved in," he told attendees. "We now have a system that is in your hands. It is being created with your input. You can make a difference here. More so than ever before. " 2016-04-03 07:11 Jessica Davis

5 The Internet Association announces support for controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership deal When a deal was reached on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) last year, activists called the agreement the “biggest global threat to the internet,” claiming it would bring massive new online restrictions around the world. One of the many criticisms directed at the TPP is that it favors the interests of big businesses; part of the deal appears to state - using vague wording - that revealing corporate wrongdoings “through a computer system” will be made a crime. And while a number of companies have voiced their support of the plan, one holdout has been influential trade group The Internet Association (IA) – until now. The IA, which counts Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, Uber, and eBay among its members, has finally endorsed the controversial pact after previously expressing concern over certain elements, such as the intellectual property laws. “The TPP recognizes the Internet as an essential American export,” said Internet Association CEO, Michael Beckerman, in a statement. “Historically, pro-Internet policies have been absent from trade agreements, which is why the TPP is an important step forward for the Internet sector that accounts for 6 percent of the GDP and nearly 3 million American jobs. “It will be critical that the TPP is implemented in a way that supports the Internet economy.” As part of the agreement, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam have agreed to take on the various intellectual property and internet laws of the US. The trade deal was signed on February 4 this year, but it faces opposition in congress, which still needs to ratify the agreement before it can come into effect. 2016-04-03 08:20 Rob Thubron

6 Upstream oil and gas companies spend smarter on digital technologies to drive value, reduce costs in downturn, Accenture and Microsoft survey finds HOUSTON — March 9, 2016 — As upstream oil and gas companies scrutinize every dollar invested, they’re spending smarter today on digital technologies, seeking to drive value and reduce costs amid low oil and gas prices, a new survey by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) reports. Respondents to the “ 2016 Upstream Oil and Gas Digital Trends Survey” included international oil companies (IOCs), national oil companies (NOCs), independents and oilfield services firms. Over the next three to five years, 80 percent of upstream oil and gas companies plan to spend the same, more, or significantly more (30%, 36%, and 14%, respectively) on digital technologies as they do now, according to the survey, now in its fifth edition. This continued investment in digital is due to respondents’ confidence that digital technologies can continue to help them drive leaner, smarter organizations. More than half (53 percent) of respondents said digital is already adding high to significant value to their businesses. Cost reduction was identified as the biggest challenge that digital technologies can most address today, respondents said. In addition, respondents reported that making faster and better decisions was the greatest benefit digital technologies can deliver (56 percent) and that one of the biggest barriers to realizing value is the lack of a clear strategy or business case, not the technology itself. Today’s digital investments focus more on mobility, with almost three-fifths of respondents (57 percent) reporting having invested in mobile, compared to 49 percent of the respondents in last year’s survey. Next is investing in the Internet of Things (IoT) (44 percent) this year vs. 25 percent in 2015 and the cloud (38 percent), up 8 percent from last year. Over the next three to five years, these investments are expected to shift more to big data and analytics (38 percent), IoT (36 percent) and mobile (31 percent). “In the current challenging environment, the upstream oil and gas industry is focusing digital technologies on areas that help them work smarter and deliver significant efficiencies and savings in the short term while enabling them to make better decisions faster,” said Rich Holsman, global head of Digital in Accenture’s Energy industry group. “So, in the short term we expect these companies will continue to invest in areas that help lower operations costs through technologies like increased worker productivity with mobility, lower infrastructure costs through the cloud and drive better asset management through analytics.” Respondents said digital’s biggest impact to date on the upstream oil and gas workforce has been increased employee productivity and engagement followed by better training and reskilling opportunities. They see the greatest impact from IoT in enabling connected field workers, with 60 percent of respondents planning to have field workers and assets digitally connected with smart devices. The use of the cloud, respondents said, has shifted from being used primarily for infrastructure to an enabler of mobile tools. This trend is expected to increase in the next three to five years, as companies keep using the cloud to get faster and more value from other digital technologies. “By taking advantage of the intelligent cloud, greater use of analytics and IoT go hand in hand with what we are seeing in our business today — the advent of the industrial Internet enabling the power of digital across the oil and gas landscape,” said Craig Hodges, general manager of the Gulf Coast District at Microsoft. “You can see this trend gaining traction from connected wells and intelligent pipelines to highly- efficient digital refineries.” While two thirds (66 percent) identified analytics as one of the most important capabilities for transforming their company, only 13 percent felt their firm’s analytical capabilities were mature. Almost two-thirds (65 percent) plan to implement more analytic capabilities in the next three years to help address this need. The “2016 Upstream Oil and Gas Digital and Technology Trends Survey,” sponsored by Accenture and Microsoft and conducted by PennEnergy Research in partnership with the Oil & Gas Journal, surveyed upstream professionals worldwide, including engineers, geologists and mid-level and executive management. About Accenture Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 373,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com. Accenture Digital , comprised of Accenture Analytics , Accenture Interactive and Accenture Mobility , offers a comprehensive portfolio of business and technology services across digital marketing, mobility and analytics. Learn more about Accenture Digital at www.accenture.com/digital . About Microsoft Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. 2016-04-03 08:20 By Microsoft

7 Google glitch translates 'Russian Federation' into 'Mordor'; it has a ring to it As a fan of Cossack dancing, Eastern Bloc architecture, vodka and pervasive government oppression, Sneak loves Russia. And while he accepts that Siberia is a vast and mostly empty land mass, capable of killing the unwary in numerous ways, he would not liken it to Mordor, the dark, ash-covered, orc-infested land in the south-east of Tolkien's Middle Earth. But, according to multiple reports, the all-seeing, all-knowing Sauron Google believes that Russia is in fact Mordor. Or more accurately a bug in the Google Translate tool translated the Ukrainian word for 'Russian Federation' into 'Mordor'. Not content with effectively calling Russia a nation of twisted, down-trodden creatures ruled by a brutal dictator, Google Translate went one step further by translating 'Russians' into 'okkupanty' meaning ‘occupiers' in Sneak's second language, that being English. C++ is his mother tongue. Then to pour a granary of salt into the virtual wound, Google translated the surname of Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov into the Russian for 'sad little horse', according to The Telegraph. Sneak thinks that's rather cute in a slightly Eeyore way. Yes he knows Eeyore is a fictional donkey. Please don't write in. Now, that noise you're hearing is Sneak's irony alarm going off at full pelt, given that Ukraine is not exactly having the best time with Russia and pro-Russian rebels at the moment, particularly as in 2014 Russia annexed the Crimea region from Ukraine, simply because it could. Google has apologised for the error and blamed the automated aspect of Translate, but Sneak is not convinced that it was a bug and, to indulge the conspiracy theorist in him, believes that a disgruntled pro-Ukraine programmer decided to tweak Google Translate to offer this slight at Russian users. Back in his early years as an IT chap at Northern Rock, Sneak ended up dating a lovely Russian systems analyst called Natasha. She had a mononym. Next thing he knew she disappeared one evening after a heady of vodka and Kerplunk! and disappeared with Sneak's server room key card. Then the banking crisis happened, Northern Rock went under and Sneak took indefinite sick leave. The moral of the story is that annoying the Russians might not be wise, otherwise the road to Google's Mountain View HQ could end up being blocked by Soviet-era tanks with president Putin straddling a turret, topless and declaring "You shall not pass" to befuddled Google engineers. Or perhaps they will take it in good humour. After all as the video below explains: Russians love to boogie. 07 Jan 2016 2016-04-03 08:13 www.v3

8 Microsoft Positions Cortana, Skype, AI As 'Future Of Communications' In his introductory keynote for Microsoft's Build 2016 developer's conference, CEO explained the company's vision for the future of communication. The concept of "conversation as a platform" will serve as the foundation of how we will interact with technology and one another. "We want to take the power of human language and apply that more pervasively to all the computing interfaces and computing interactions," he said, also noting the future "is not going to be about man vs. machines, it's going to be about man with machines. " This will require humans to teach computers human language, conversational understanding, and their personal preferences so technology can be more helpful day-to-day life. Nadella noted how as humans infuse intelligence into everything, it's important for Microsoft to have a principled approach and have a way to guide their communication design. [Study shows Office 365 and Slack are gaining enterprise users .] He explained how there will be three actors in the future of interaction: People who have natural conversation with one another, personal digital assistants who know people, and bots, which serve as new applications that converse with people. "Human language is the new UI layer, bots are the new apps, and digital assistants are meta apps," said Nadella. He acknowledged Cortana, the personal digital assistant Microsoft launched two years ago, as an example of the type of "unbounded" assistant that will work across devices. Microsoft will launch a new Cortana app collection as part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update , but it wants to go beyond this and make conversations as easy as person-to-person chats. It plans to make Cortana's expertise extensible and give developers the chance to add to its capabilities across devices. To improve accessibility in the summer OS update, Cortana will be available straight from the lock screen so users can play music, set alarms, and get directions without entering their device. The assistant will also be available in Outlook, with user permission, for scheduling appointments and emails. Learn to integrate the cloud into legacy systems and new initiatives. Attend the Cloud Connect Track at Interop Las Vegas, May 2-6. Register now! Microsoft is trying to create Cortana so it proactively does things before you instruct it. For example, if Cortana notices you're talking about meeting with someone, it will add the meeting to your calendar and pinpoint conflicts. If it sees a receipt in your email, it will ask if you want to create an expense report and pre-populate the form with the correct information. In other communication updates, the Skype team is integrating intelligent Bots into Skype chats. The next generation of Skype will have Cortana always ready in the upper right-hand corner for one-on-one interaction. Cortana will broker conversations with Bots to be a more proactive assistant and enact the ideas you're discussing. The Bots enable users to hire a cab, book a plane ticket, and perform other actions traditionally done with individual apps. If Cortana notices you're talking about travel to a particular city where a friend lives, the assistant will contact the Bot that will give you options to message them. A new Skype client, with Skype Bots, is currently in preview on Windows, Android, iPhone and iPad. There is also a new Skype developer program available for those who want to start building Bots. Microsoft announced the Bot Connector and Bot Builder, which developers can use to connect bots and create new ones. Senior PM Cornelia Carapcea announced the preview for Microsoft Cognitive Services. This is a new portfolio of 22 APIs that developers can use to build intelligent solutions for seeing, hearing, and interpreting the surrounding world. The idea is developers can expand on existing perceptual intelligence capabilities (vision, text, speech) to experiment with cognitive capabilities like emotion. Some examples of APIs now available for free include the Emotion API for emotion recognition, Speaker Recognition API so the app can determine who is speaking, and Text Analytics API to detect key phrases and topics within text. 2016-04-03 00:05 Kelly Sheridan

9 Turn your PC into a wifi hotspot with NirSoft’s HostedNetworkStarter NirSoft has released HostedNetworkStarter , a free tool which turns your wifi-enabled PC or laptop into a wireless hotspot. There's no installation required, no network drivers or anything else involved: the program is just a simple front-end for the standard Windows wifi hosted network feature. Getting started can be as easy as entering a network name and key. Optional settings include choosing an internet connection to share, and setting the maximum number of clients that you'll accept. While this works much like many other tools, HostedNetworkStarter stands out for the details it displays about your hotspot. A table lists your network GUID, name, connection name, MAC address, channel number, link speeds, sent and received packet totals, and -- useful for troubleshooting -- any error messages or codes returned by Windows when setting up your hotspot. Everything is displayed in the usual NirSoft way, which means you can sort the table by any field, and save the details on demand as a text or HTML report. HostedNetworkStarter is a freeware tool for Windows 7 and later. 2016-04-02 23:05 By Mike

10 The gig economy as a driver of innovation If you are reading this article, chances are you have taken an Uber, are familiar with Upwork and maybe even sold something on Etsy. Business models that fall under the “gig economy” umbrella have been proven for business-to- consumer and peer-to-peer markets because they make it possible to crowdsource products and services from huge communities of people. Large online networks can also be some of the greatest sources of innovation. Led by the enterprise and government research and development verticals, this trend is growing rapidly because of a shift in focus from single-point services to the co-creation (collaborative innovation) model. Some of the most novel case studies and applications of innovation and crowdsourcing are coming from unexpected places: large enterprises and government agencies. Driven by pressure for continued growth and tapping talent outside their workforce, large companies like Apple , IBM , GE and a host of others have launched prize challenges seeking innovative ideas, products and software solutions. Even the U. S. government is launching challenges at an unprecedented rate. A recent report by Deloitte estimated that more than $60 million in prizes was offered through the Challenge.gov platform. The annual America COMPETES progress report released by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy reported that 17 agencies launched prize challenges in 2014 — seven of them being first-timers. This increased activity has contributed to a growing market for innovation and crowdsourcing capabilities, resulting in a recent $20 million worth of open innovation service contracts with NASA. As the market for innovation and crowdsourcing continues to grow, the enterprise customer is searching for co-creation frameworks that can deliver real value. One such framework is the Catalyst model that I co-founded and implemented at the Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Catalyst builds real startups with prototypes from communities of innovators. Best suited for early-stage innovation in verticals where prototyping is inexpensive, Catalyst links a community of energy entrepreneurs (using the IdeaScale platform ) to a community of developers and designers in Appirio’s Topcoder platform. Catalyst delivers real value through a four-step co-creation framework: (1) ideation to find the top pain points and wish list of a specific vertical, (2) team formation anchored by a business solution addressing the pain points or wish list, (3) rapid prototyping using crowdsourced software development and (4) incubation where teams are incentivized to grow and scale. The framework has been one of the few in open innovation to successfully link ideation to incubation and has been shown to be scalable across EERE, garnering funding in two rounds from the Solar Energy Technologies Office and the Building Technologies Office. In 2015, a $2 million prize backed 36 early-stage teams with prototypes and was shown to be 2x as fast and 10x as cost-effective to comparable phase I and phase II Small Business Innovation Research grants. In addition to media coverage from non-traditional outlets like TechCrunch , the program won a host of accolades, including the 2015 International Society for Professional Innovation Management Grand Prize. With increasing enterprise investment being made in innovation and crowdsourcing, a new workforce with new skills will be needed to deliver results from co-creation business models. In recent years we have seen the rise of the community manager , whose duties can range from growth hacking to improvement of the community. With co-creation it is necessary to have a super-community manager (manager of multiple community managers) whose concern is not only engagement, but integration. Crowdsourcing and crowd-powered tools have been described by Peter Diamandis to be an exponential technology because of the exceptional access to innovation and enablement that they provide. Now, imagine the value of the new “gig economy” where communities of exponential capability not only deliver unique solutions, but their collaboration has a force multiplier effect that delivers game-changing innovation. 2016-04-02 20:16 Michael Contreras

11 5 apps that could help you in an earthquake Philip Masterson @philmasterson15 Phil Masterson is a freelance writer. Join the network The year 2015 left us with a series of devastating earthquakes that shook Nepal, Afghanistan, Japan, Malaysia, and Chile leaving thousands of people dead and costing billions of dollars in damages. The prevalence of these quakes had people talking about “The Big One” — a mega-thrust earthquake anticipated to hit North America or Southeast Asia within our lifetime. Several countries have been conducting earthquake drills and various forms of disaster preparedness activities in anticipation of this potentially cataclysmic earthquake. Technology companies have mobilized as well, with a number of apps on the market that can help provide information and communication in the event of an earthquake, or another natural or manmade disaster. 2016-04-02 20:16 Philip Masterson

12 Moneyball is dead. Long live Moneyball! While it seems the term has been around baseball forever, the concept of “moneyball” — coined to describe the Oakland Athletics’ approach to building competitive teams despite being hamstrung with one of the sport’s lowest payrolls — entered the popular lexicon with Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game , in 2003 (followed by the film). The concept is simple. Rather than relying on the traditional, often subjective wisdom of baseball- lifer scouts, who use their eyes to judge player ability, moneyball uses an analytical, evidence- based approach to build a roster. It’s useful for cash-strapped teams because it typically identifies undervalued, overlooked players. The concept dates back to the days of sabermetrics — early analysis of nontraditional statistics that brought names like Bill James into the lexicon, and its use of “WAR” (wins above replacement) and emphasis on OBP (on-base percentage) rather than traditional measures of a player’s value, such as batting average and runs batted in. For a while, it worked. The Athletics made the postseason each year from 2000 to 2003, going a stunning 103-59 in 2002. Once Lewis’ book hit, suddenly moneyball was everywhere – across all four major U. S. pro sports, and even in some teams’ business operations such as ticketing, other revenue streams and marketing. Success breeds imitation, and some teams, such as the Boston Red Sox, combined moneyball concepts with their economic power to build rosters that merged overlooked assets with star players. Suddenly, the concepts that worked for small-market teams were co-opted by their major-market competitors. Oakland never got past the League Championship Series, most recently playing in the ALCS in 2006. People soon grew tired of the analytical approach; it became passé, even mocked by some. A Deadspin piece bore the headline “Sports Analytics” Is Bullshit Now. It made a good point: If everyone is using the same analytics, does it give anyone an advantage? These are increasingly crucial distinctions in sports, where the information available to all teams has basically become standardized. A few years ago, the best data was brokered by independent agencies selling it to teams individually. Now, the NBA subsidizes team access to SportVU player-tracking data, while MLB Advanced Media is rolling out its own fielding-tracking system, giving teams access to more data than most know what to do with. That means there’s less and less low-hanging fruit for guys like Billy Beane, who were early to the notion of, well, simply bothering to look. And in February, I was surprised to read a piece in the Boston Globe stating that owner John Henry, who made his living in commodities trading (“moneyball for soybeans”?), believes the team has relied too much on analytics in making major decisions. He also replaced his data- centric general manager with a baseball lifer, Dave Dombrowski, who judges talent in an old- school fashion. This was a huge culture shift for the team. Despite a payroll either second or third highest in baseball, the Red Sox have also relied on statistics to build their roster. Former Sox player Kevin Youkilis, known as “The Greek God of Walks,” was featured extensively in Lewis’ book. And most of the time they’ve sought expensive free agents, the team has missed — mightily, from Daisuke Matsuzaka to Hanley Ramirez to Carl Crawford. But with all that said, I had to ask myself, is the analytics era over? As NFL referees would say, “upon further review” … no. In fact, I believe it’s still very much in its infancy, evolving as it finds peace with the established scouting methods and philosophies that have for so long dominated baseball. From the Globe piece: “[S]couts (were) giving each other high-fives and wearing smiles ear to ear while the analytics community was taken aback. Henry’s declaration was shocking to them, while the scouting community saw the comments as a victory.” That line is very telling, and displays the misconceptions “lifer” scouts have on data mining and analytics. The common belief is that scouts see the relationship between analytics and “feet-on- the-street scouting” as a zero-sum game: one approach has to win at the expense of another, a war of attrition between stat geeks like Bill James and old-school guys like Jim Leyland. I believe this is because the analytics side of the house still hasn’t effectively communicated its importance to the larger scouting community. Currently, analytics is analogous to the physics professor you had in high school or college who filled a chalkboard explaining Newton’s law of gravity — and, as a student, you sat there wondering, why do I need to know all this? Things fall from the sky to the ground. I get it. Scouts are like those students who question why such learning is necessary. If I hit 100 fly balls, I know that 100 of them will fall toward the ground; thus, gravity works. But once we stop seeing this as an all-or-nothing approach — and use the hybrid methodologies of successful teams like the Red Sox (2004, 2007 and 2013 World Series Champions) — success can be shared among an organization rather than credited to a siloed philosophy. The real challenge is learning how to encourage both sides to work together, as opposed to against each other, and fielding the best possible team with their budget. This type of dichotomy and resistance to work together toward a common goal is not a foreign concept. In fact, it’s present just about everywhere you look: the corporate world, colleges and universities, politics and even in a preschool playpen. Don’t believe me? Put two toddlers in a room with only one truck and tell me how well they work together. Put two strong-willed groups of people in a room with only one way of operating, and why would you expect the results to be any different? But baseball is not a zero-sum game, and it’s time to realize that both analytics approaches and traditional scouting offer value. They must work together so John Henry’s comments begin to sound not like a death knell for analytics, but the beginning of an era of cooperation. 2016-04-02 20:16 Jay Laramore

13 The death of ‘Internet’ The folks responsible for the entries in the Associated Press Stylebook have announced that the word “Internet” will no longer be uppercased, thus breaking my heart and making some of our writers very happy. The AP Stylebook, which many newspapers and websites (one word? really?) use to guide their style efforts, defines Internet as “a decentralized, worldwide network of computers that can communicate with each other.” It’s a pretty big definition and has warranted the glory of a capital I. But no more. And that’s not all. T he AP Stylebook has also decided to lowercase “Web.” The changes, which were not announced on April Fools’ Day, are to take effect on June 1 when the 2016 edition of the style guide is released. Then, and only then, will “Internet” join other inexplicable changes the style guide has made in the recent past, including “more than” versus “over” and “underway” versus “under way,” both of which still vex me. At least it still thinks “literally” means literally and not “figuratively. ” 2016-04-02 20:16 Henry Pickavet

14 Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, gets some upgrades TechCrunch went out to the ballpark this week — specifically Citi Field, home of the New York Mets. Granted, it wasn’t the most tech-centric event, but the stadium has seen some changes between seasons — including the addition of a big LED Coca-Cola sign, which looms over the new Coca-Cola Corner in right field. Apparently, the sign is the second largest “freeform display” in Major League Baseball. The Mets will play the year’s first game at Citi Field on April 8, against the Phillies. 2016-04-02 20:16 Anthony Ha

15 How to approach machine learning as a non-technical person

The last few years have seen an explosion of interest in machine learning technology and potential applications. As a non-expert, you’ve probably either had to assess ML technology for your product and business or as a potential investment. The jargon around ML technology is vast, confusing and, unfortunately, increasingly being hijacked by overeager sales teams. This post is not a primer on ML technology; this post won’t pretend to give you an explanation of deep learning or any specific technology, because these concepts change frequently and are largely irrelevant to much of the decision making. Instead, this post will address how to assess the technology and determine if it will yield pragmatic business value. Ultimately, ML is meant to be used in the context of a given task, a problem with inputs and a way to objectively assess how right or wrong an output is. While you may not understand the technology being used, it’s crucial to understand the task. Don’t accept vagueness or something poorly defined like “understanding what a sentence means.” If someone can’t explain what their ML actually does independently of technical jargon, it’s a bad sign. At a high level there are common kinds of tasks frequently seen in ML: classification, regression and ranking. For instance, image recognition, such as in ImageNet, is a classification task where we have an input image and want to predict the primary subject matter of the image (a photo of a dog, car, etc.). Regression is about predicting a real numerical value or values from an input, such as predicting the future value of a home or a stock portfolio. Ranking is about predicting an ordering of items which is “best” in a given setting; for instance, in search ranking, we want to order results that are most relevant for a given query and user profile and history. So when you’re hearing about an ML pitch of some kind, it’s important to take a step back and get an explanation. Once you understand the task, it’s important to understand how the ML system is being evaluated on that task. Typically, people will define a system evaluation metric that gives a quantitative measure of how well the system does on the task. As an example, in image recognition you can report what percent of the time you predict the right category for an image (e.g. I correctly guessed this was an image of a dog). The common ML tasks (classification, regression and ranking) all have standard evaluation metrics with which it would be worth familiarizing yourself. It’s unfortunately quite common for people to develop very complex algorithms and technology for problems, but not actually develop an objective evaluation metric. Not having a metric is a very bad sign. There’s no objective way to actually know whether their “super deep learning” actually yields any tangible benefits. When it comes to building ML, or any technology really, for business value, you want to work with people who focus and drive by metrics. A common and frustrating reality is that more complex ML technology does not necessarily mean improvements on evaluation metrics; especially in environments with limited data, simple techniques frequently outperform more complex ones. The corollary of this is if you’re building ML, always develop and try simpler methods first. I’ve personally consulted on many projects where people have heavily invested in ML only to find out something vastly simpler (in more than one case just Naive Bayes) performed at least as well, with an order of magnitude more speed and less development time. The last and trickiest aspect of assessing ML technology is understanding how improvements on the ML task will impact which business metrics and by how much. Sometimes there’s a very direct relationship. For instance, for ad placement in search results, the ML metric is typically predicting the probability of ad click-through (possibly weighted by expected CPC). The rate and revenue-generated ad click-through is either a core business metric or closely related to one. In this setting, it makes a lot of sense to invest heavily in ML, because gains will likely improve business metrics. In other settings, the relationship is less clear. For instance, at Netflix, improving movie recommendation quality by 0.5 percent, while difficult, does not necessarily mean that month- over-month subscriber retention will necessary budge (although something like engagement might). As a product owner or investor, it’s important that you understand which business metric you want to actually move and whether or not ML improvements might actually yield those changes. Unsurprisingly, this might be part of why Google invests so heavily in ML, because improvements are strongly correlated with key business and financial metrics. On the flip side, for Apple, a 1 percent improvement to Siri has a much weaker and tenuous relationship with how many iPhones are sold. If you want to work on ML in products or invest in the area, it’s crucial to understand whether this really is an area where ML can “move” the needle. 2016-04-02 20:16 Aria Haghighi

16 11 TechCrunch stories you don’t want to miss this week This week, Tesla unveiled a brand-new model, Oculus Rift shipped and Snapchat saw a major upgrade. These are this week’s top tech stories you don’t want to miss. 1. The Tesla Model 3 has been unveiled. The base model starts at $35,000, and it does 0-60 in under 6 seconds. Over 150,000 people have already pre-ordered it. 2. Microsoft held its Build conference this week. The most notable announcement was that Microsoft is bringing the Bash shell to Windows. You can find everything we wrote about Build here. 3. Lucas Matney wrote a full review of the Oculus Rift. Simply put: it’s amazing, but you probably shouldn’t buy one yet. Josh Constine also wrote a feature about 5 hard questions facing Oculus Rift. 4. Connie Loizos took an in-depth look at Tony Fadell , asking if he is in Nest’s way. As Loizos explains, “Fadell couldn’t be further apart from Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai.” 5. Snapchat upgraded everything on its platform this week. With “Chat 2.0,” Snapchat has seamlessly combined video, audio, GIFs, and stickers. As Josh Constine puts it, “Snapchat serves as a phone.” You can also see us run through all the new features in this Facebook Live video . 6. Spotify is doing whatever it takes to compete with Apple Music, and this week they raised $1 billion in debt with devilish terms. If Spotify doesn’t perform well, it could cost the company a lot of money. 7. The FBI is full of shit. They just unlocked another phone. Jon Evans dove into the encryption debate with a follow-up piece “This war on math is still bullshit.” 8. Contributor Sephi Shapira wrote about the connected fridge, and how having a smart refrigerator in the household could change our buying and consumption habits. 9. Matt Joseph, a Y Combinator-backed startup founder, went on an epic tweet storm ahead of demo day about an elephant room — racism and raising money as a black founder. Post tweetstorm and demo day, he is now receiving funding for e-commerce startup Locent. 10. Remember the epic, 18-minute recording of a man’s attempt to cancel his Comcast service that went viral a couple years back? A new bill we’re dubbing ‘Ryan’s Law’ would allow you to cancel Comcast online with one click. Because let’s be real. If you sign up online, you should be able to cancel online. 11. Last week, Instagram announced it was going to be changing its algorithm. Naturally, everyone freaked out. Brands and professional Instagrammers asked followers to turn on post notifications for their pages. But the truth is, the algorithm is going to force us to compete. If posts don’t perform well, Instagram won’t show them. 2016-04-02 20:16 Travis Bernard

17 Spotify suffers notable hour-long outage for many users Breathe that weekend air, Saturday is here in most parts of the world! Great time to put on some music and relax, except, that is, if you’re a Spotify user because the world’s most popular streaming service is experiencing some issues right now. Update: It looks like the service is returning for most users. Access to Spotify was problematic for around an hour, which makes this a notably long outage. Most users expect on-demand music so Spotify and its rivals can’t afford to let them down regularly. Many of Spotify’s 100 million users — me included — found themselves logged out of the service, some while listening to music, and are unable to access Spotify’s mobile or desktop apps. So if you’re seeing notifications that suggest that your password is wrong, that you don’t have an account or that you can’t log in via Facebook, don’t worry as something isn’t working right and it is affecting a lot of other people, too. This is a rare outage for Spotify, which recently passed 30 million paying users. The problem appeared to start around midnight PDT (8:00 GMT), according to user complaints on Twitter. Spotify acknowledged the issue on Twitter and said it is working on a fix, although it didn’t say what the problem is and how many users it may be affecting. (We’ve contacted the company to try to get more information.) Here are the error notices you may be seeing on Spotify’s desktop (left) and mobile (right) apps. The web client — play.spotify.com — also appears to inaccessible. Those affected are, of course, upset, with some worried that their accounts have been wiped. Now might be a good time for Soundcloud, which just launched a premium version of its service , and Apple, which is now running advertising with Taylor Swift , to promote their services as alternatives to Spotify for a little spontaneous new user acquisition. Maybe Kanye can even pipe up — he did launch new releases on Spotify this week so he might want to take credit for bringing Spotify to its knees. (Though it is not the reason for today’s glitch, of course.) Stay tuned for more… 2016-04-02 20:16 Jon Russell

18 10 'ARGH!' moments every computer user experiences Computers make life easier, right? Computers are fun, valuable tools, yeah? True, but they can also be such utterly infuriately pieces of tech that they seem to serve no purpose other than to raise our blood pressure and drive us mad. I'm not talking about when Windows crashes, when an app hangs, or the internet slows to a crawl. I'm talking about those 'ARGH!' moments we've all experienced where there's no one to blame but ourselves. When things go wrong because of 'user error' it doesn't make them any less infuriating; in fact, the opposite is often the case. Here are ten of the most frustrating scenarios that just about every computer user has encountered at some point. 1. Trying to interact with a non-touchscreen monitor We've all done it. It's easy to get used to working with your phone or tablet and not transition smoothly to your regular desktop or laptop. How many of us have jabbed pointless at an icon to try to open a file, or needlessly swiped a finger across the lock screen to access the password entry screen? You'd think we'd learn, but no... 2. Accidentally hitting a link in bookmarks bar Filed under 'Almost, but not quite', we've all missed our intended target in a web browser. Positioning the bookmark toolbar beneath the Back and Refresh buttons was clearly asking for trouble, and it's all too easy to be whisked away from what you were looking at to some completely unrelated website. The distance of just a few pixels between the different hot-zones is clearly to blame, but it never gets any less infuriating. 3. Accidentally deleting files / emails A close relative of 'accidentally hitting a link in bookmarks bar' is the accidentally deleted file or email. A poorly judged mouse click or key press is all it takes to send a missive or document into oblivion. Seriously, who at Google though that it was a good idea to put the Delete button smack in between Spam and Mark As Read? It's asking for trouble! The same goes for the Delete option in context menus -- one slip of the finger and that file is history. It's easy to feel that the Recycle Bin and email trash are just for idiots who can’t use computers properly, but we've all gone scurry there, shame-faced, looking to retrieve that important message or file. 4. Downloading files to the wrong folder and then not knowing where the f@$! they are You might be one of those people who always download files to the Downloads folder, or maybe the desktop is your preferred destination. But even if you are regimented in your download location, there will always be the odd occasion when an alternative folder is used. Select folder, hit Save. Open folder... no file! Which damned folder did I just select? It sure as hell wasn't the one I intended to use! [Fires up a file search...] 5. Forgetting the volume is up über high This YouTube video is a bit on the quiet side. I'll just crack up the volume. Time passes. Forget about increased voume. Decide to put on some Nine Inch Nails Argh! Jeezo! Ears bleed 6. Trying to select a bunch of files, but moving them instead If you're a fan of holding down the Shift key while selecting a series of files, you've probably never experienced the bewilderment that accidentally relocating documents. If, however, you like to draw a selection box around files, you've almost certainly flung the first file you were trying to select into a random folder. Obviously happens when you're in a rush... without fail! 7. Having pen selected instead of crop tool Rightio... time to get to work on those holiday snaps; there are a few photos that would benefit from a little reframing courtesy of the crop tool. Well, you thought you had the crop tool selected - - but, no, it your image editor has default back to the pen so you've scrawled a diagonal line from one corner to another. Goddamit! 8. Accidentally opting to always open a certain file type with a particular app Easily done on both a phone or a computer. You might have installed a new app and no have multiple apps that are capable of opening images or some other file type. Of course, you'll be presented with a list to choose from, as well as the option of always using a certain app. It goes without saying that you had the wrong app selected before okaying the change in defaults. Gnnnrrrr! 9. Having caps lock enabled when typing without looking There's a danger in being able to touch type coupled with a habit of watching TV whilst working. It's something I'm guilty of, and it means I frequently type away without looking at either my keyboard or screen. When my attention is guided back to concentrating fully on what I'm doing, there have been numerous occasions when I find I've been typing away with Caps Lock on. Gah! If you're in Word, there's the handy keyboard shortcut Shift + F3 to change the case of selected text, but there are far too many applications (and, obviously, web sites) on which this doesn't work. Maddening. 10. Not being able to get the cursor into diagonal-double-headed-arrow mode to resize a window and trying to hit the target for hours on end The title says it all, really. It's something that should take a second or less -- quickly resizing a window to a different size or shape. But can you get your mouse positioned over the corner pixel (and it does seem to be an area no bigger than a single pixel) to be able to resize horizontally and vertically at the same time? Can you flip! There it is... oh, missed it! There! No! Quick! Click and drag! Oh, forget it... Anything you would add to the list? What makes you want to punch your monitor in inexpressible rage. Photo credit: Ollyy / Shutterstock 2016-04-02 13:56 By Mark

19 Google announces 24-inch Acer Chromebase all-in-one video conference system In order to facilitate enterprise users, Google has announced a new Chromebase desktop computer from Acer which enables users to make meeting calls effortlessly. With ChromeOS installed, the Acer Chromebase boasts of an 'All- in-one video-conferencing' experience in an effort to increase productivity in the enterprise market. This device hosts a 24-inch 720p HD IPS touch screen. It also contains three 3.0 and one 2.0 USB ports, an SD card reader, four microphones, a 720p front-facing camera, an HDMI slot and Bluetooth 4.0 technology. The Acer Chromebase offers a more user- friendly interface compared to its predecessors , and also supports 'Guest accounts' so users can join meetings without having to sign in with a Google account. Furthermore, the company has also upgraded Google Apps to support up to 25 people in a video conference. The device also sports remote management tools in order to troubleshoot audio and video quality issues. Google went on to state that: The Acer Chromebase is priced at $799 but the company has also clarified that the price tag includes one year of management and support fees. The device's availability is currently limited to businesses in Australia, Canada, Ireland, U. K. and the U. S., but Google states that it plans to sell the Acer Chromebase in more territories soon. Source and image: Google via Engagdet 2016-04-02 13:40 Usama Jawad

20 GLOBAL GIVEAWAY: Win one of 10 Tronsmart Titan Quick Charge 2.0 desktop charging stations If you have not done so already, then be sure to check out our Tronsmart Titan review to get familiar with what the Titan has to offer. It is a convenient way to save not only on cables flying around all over your desktop, but also save on plug sockets at the mains. Not only that, but since all 5 USB ports on the Titan deliver Quick Charge 2.0 capabilities, you won't have to wait long for compatible devices to charge up. And where non QC2.0 devices are used, they will simply charge at their maximum supported rates. Quick, simple and effective! Tronsmart have very kindly offered to give away 10 of these stations to lucky Neowin readers. For a chance to grab one, simply post a comment below to let us know how you will be using the Titan if you are one of the lucky winners as well as one or more of the following: The 10 winners will be selected at random and notified on Saturday 9th April. A list of winners will be updated below once contact has been made. Good luck! 2016-04-02 13:24 Robbie Khan

21 21 Gartner: PC shipments to bottom out, smartphone sales to increase by only 7% in 2016 Gartner Inc., a company which measures technology records and insights, has published a new report predicting the course of device sales over the next couple of years. While the company claims that 2016 is the year when PC sales will bottom out, it also estimates that smartphone sales will increase by only 7%. The report estimates that combined shipment of devices can be expected to reach 2.4 billion units in 2016, which is a 0.6% increase from the previous year. But perhaps, the most important thing to note is that the PC market will finally bottom out in 2016 , seeing an upward trend in subsequent years. In 2016, the PC market is expected to decline to 284 million units sold, compared to 289 million in 2015, but then rise to 306 million by 2018. Gartner also predicts that while smartphone sales in emerging markets will continue to grow, this will happen at a slower pace. According to the company, this is evident from statistics given that this will be the first time that the smartphone market will exhibit only a single digit-growth. Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner went on to say that: The report explains that through 2019, more than 150 million users will delay smartphone upgrades in emerging markets until device functionality and prices become more attractive. However, in India, smartphone sales are anticipated to continue double-digit growth for the next two years. With that being said, analysts still predict a decline in European, North American and Japanese markets stating that: Gartner also stated that smartphone vendors are also to blame for the slow growth as prices did not decrease significantly and the cost of a 'good enough to use' handset did not dip below $50. Source: Gartner | Portrait of three girls chatting with their smartphones at the park image via Shutterstock 2016-04-02 13:08 Usama Jawad

22 7 Days: A week of Building Windows 10, Bots, Holograms and 'Almost Perfect' Galaxys It’s been a few very busy and exciting days in the world of Microsoft and technology, and as some guy on TV keeps saying, we’ve only got time for a quick recap of the week. So let’s start with some good news for Windows users, as Microsoft has been pushing out updates and improvements left and right for many of its apps. This week we saw announcements that the Mail and Camera apps would soon be getting improvements , after the previous week a number of big name brands announced they’d be bringing UWP apps to Windows. Of course the news got even better when that list of publishers expanded at Build, but we’ll get deeper into that later. Microsoft also announced this week it had finalized work on a special version of Windows 10 , destined specifically for the Chinese market. While it’s not clear what makes this version different from the one we all know, getting good market adoption in China could definitely help with Microsoft’s goal of one billion devices running its newest OS. Shifting gears for a bit, this was a very important week in the fight between the FBI and Apple and the debate around digital privacy. Just a day before the Federal Bureau of Investigation was supposed to take the iPhone maker to court, the government agency backed down from the fight. The FBI announced it had found a third party willing and able to crack into the encrypted iPhone , so Apple wouldn’t be forced by a court to hack its software. This week, the FBI announced it had been successful in cracking the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone and that Apple was completely off the hook for now. The company responded that it would continue to make its products as secure as it can , while also helping law enforcement when legally obliged and able to do so. Of course, this is by no means the end of the war just a small respite. Just this week the NSA director attended a secret meeting in Israel to talk about cyber-security. As encryption use becomes more widespread and privacy comes under threat, we’re guaranteed to see this debate flare up again in the future. Going back to the regular world of tech, this week we published our in-depth reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge devices. Both devices lived up to the hype and were actually deemed to be “outstanding” and “almost perfect”. There’s also a comparison between the current models and some previous offerings, just to see how far Samsung has come. But there’s a lot that goes into those conclusions so make sure to check out the full reviews and see what the devices have to offer. Before we get to the main story of the night, there are also a few miscellaneous happenings that caught our attention this week. First off, Apple fixed a blunder by releasing iOS 9.3.1 , an important software update available to iOS users, which fixes the bug that caused apps to become unresponsive. This affected all version of iOS 9 so it’s good to see Apple finally put out a fix. In other news, that image of high-tech, futuristic science and moonshot projects that you conjure up everytime you hear the name Google, may now be a bit tarnished after it announced it’s launching a landline service. Yes, the company that always bets on the future is now taking a page right out of Alexander Graham Bell’s playbook and launching a non-mobile phone. Of course the device will have some internet spirit infused into it and will rely on the cloud and VoIP to function. And now with all of that out of the way, it’s time to dig into the big event that took place this week, and that of course is World Backup Day: is your data secure? Yes, we’re kidding, the big event was, obviously, Build 2016 . Build is perhaps Microsoft’s most important event during the year, because this is the place where it gets to talk to its developers, developers, developers, developers and sets the agenda for what’s coming in the near future. It also gives everyone a good idea of what the company is planning, what its priorities are and where it believes technology is heading. And by those measures Microsoft didn’t disappoint, as it announced lots of exciting things to come, while also shifting focus to a brand new segment of the market. Before the actual event got underway we already knew that Microsoft was planning some surprises and a lot of improvements to Windows 10 and its other platforms. For example, there was strong speculation that Microsoft would be bringing Universal Windows Apps to the One. Cortana and the Action Center were expected to get a facelift in upcoming Redstone builds. And speaking of those, there was even a credible hint thanks to some leaked documentation that Redstone would be coming in July. Not only that, but there was a rumor that the company was looking to bring to Windows a continuity feature , similar to Apple’s Handoffs. Finally, a few hours before the event we learned that Microsoft would be talking a lot about bots and its efforts in artificial intelligence at the opening keynote. So how did all of those predictions pan out? Surprisingly well. Satya Nadella kicked off Build with a keynote speech where he announced to the world that Windows 10 was now running on 270 million devices , an impressive feat. Of course, the company still has a long way to go until it reaches parity with its Office suite, which is now used by 1.2 billion people around the world . Talking about the journey with Windows 10, Nadella stressed the importance and growing popularity of Universal Windows apps on the UWP platform. As part of that speech he also announced that some big name companies would be launching new UWP apps, including Facebook, Starbucks and others. This is good news for the platform, that is still seen as struggling in this department. But of course, this being a developer’s conference, Nadella went on to announce that developing universal apps will become even easier, especially with the Win32 app converter, called project Centennial. This allows classic desktop apps to be packaged as modern ones for an easy install and removal process. There are also lots of improvements on the horizon for UWPs , which will make the platform more mature and powerful. And speaking of app development, Microsoft announced that , the popular dev tool that allows cross-platform targeting, will now be open source and free for everyone to use. Microsoft bought Xamarin recently and this move will likely be appreciated by developers. Also as part of its commitment to devs, Microsoft is bringing Bash to Windows , as well as some other Linux applications. This is in an effort to become the best development platform around, and devs wanting to try out these tools can do so by installing Windows 10 Redstone build 14295 which is now available for the Slow and Production rings as well as in ISO form. Coming back to user-facing features, Microsoft had a lot to say about the future of Windows 10 and its upcoming upgrade. First off, we learned that the first major update coming to the platform, known until now as Redstone 1, will launch this July. It’ll be called the Anniversary Update, which is short and sweet, albeit it will become confusing next year. As part of the Anniversary Update, Microsoft will be bringing improvements to the Action Center, which will feature new notifications. The Start Menu is also getting a bit more polish , with a few changes planned for easier navigation and accessibility. Live Tiles will also learn a few new tricks , including deep app linking. This was a feature first seen on Windows Phone, but it’s now coming to Windows 10 in a modified fashion. Users will be able to hit a Live Tile when it displays specific info, and they’ll be taken into the app to that specific section. With the abovementioned Start Menu changes, it sounds like Tiles are closer to becoming simple widgets than ever before. Edge, the company’s new browser, will also be getting updated. There was a rumor that the browser would feature built-in adblocking but Microsoft soon debunked this, explaining Edge would rely on extensions for that. And speaking of extensions, more of those will soon be available to insiders with even more planned to launch in July. Inking, or writing on a screen with a digital pen, may be a feature that is rarely used in day to day office work, but nonetheless it’s very cool and occasionally very useful. To that end Microsoft is throwing down the gauntlet and bringing lots of improvements to Windows 10 with regards to inking. Developers will also be able to easily add inking support to their Universal Apps. Of course, no talk about Windows could be complete without mentioning the Insider program. This has been the backbone of community engagement with Microsoft and Windows 10 , and its public face, Gabe Aul, took a few minutes to talk about the program and thank its users. There was also talk about the Insider Program being merged with the Xbox Preview Program , a feat that’s starting to take place right now. It made little sense for those two to be different projects, especially as Windows 10 Anniversary Update will also be landing on Xbox One. And it will be doing so with a bang, because with this update UWPs will also finally be available on Microsoft’s console. And not only that, but the Xbox and Windows stores will finally be unified as well. To aid developers who want to bring their apps to the Xbox One , Microsoft is also enabling every console to be transformed into a dev kit, just with the press of a button. You can actually do so right now, as long as you’re part of the Insider program but not the Xbox Preview program. If you do, you’ll get the first Redstone build publicly available for the Xbox One. Other features will also be coming to the Xbox One with the Anniversary Update, including background music playing. These will be talked more about at E3. That being said, it looks like software updates and new games will be the only announcements at that conference as Phil Spencer just shut down any rumors regarding a new Xbox One. But coming back to Microsoft as a whole and Build, there was one big announcement that we haven’t touched on. And that’s perhaps the biggest announcement that the company made at Build. On stage, Nadella explained Microsoft’s vision for the future of online interaction, shopping, and productivity and said it’s now actively developing bots and bot development tools. The company isn’t just focused on chatbots or searching algorithms, though those two are essential parts of the company’s new initiative, the Bot Framework. Instead Microsoft envisions a world where artificially intelligent programs, bots, intercede on your behalf with businesses. In other words, you’ll soon be able to tell Cortana about an upcoming trip and she’ll directly put you in touch with a hotel’s bot that will be able to quickly book you a room. Microsoft doesn’t just want to build its own bots but to enable developers to build bots for almost any function on any platform. But it’s also setting itself up as an example and to that end the upcoming UWP Skype app will get Cortana integration and chatbots that can keep you up to date with news, or find stuff quickly for you. And who doesn’t want that in their business conferences? Also at Build Microsoft marked another important milestone. An emotional Alex Kipman announced on stage that the developer edition of HoloLens is finally reality, and it’s shipping to customers. Our very own Andy Weir was at the conference and got to try out this developer model and came away impressed and excited for the future. Those are all the major announcements that took place at Build, but that only scratches the surface. For those looking for many more details and a full list of new features coming to their favorite platform, we put together a list of everything that’s known about the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Now, you might have noticed that there wasn’t a single word about Windows 10 Mobile. Others noticed the same thing and eventually Microsoft was forced to address the issue. Terry Myerson, head of the Windows 10 team, acknowledged that W10M wasn’t really present at this event, because Microsoft believes developers should get excited about the company’s new products like HoloLens and Bots. Myerson did say however that there would be other events where Windows 10 Mobile would be the central focus. Until then, there seems to be a bit of smoke rising up... does anybody smell a burning platform? Those were the main stories for the past seven days. Looking forward to the week ahead we expect to see a few more tidbits come out of secondary sessions at Build. New Windows 10 Redstone builds are also expected to show up, while the general tech scene will carry on at its normal pace, without any major announcements for a while. 2016-04-02 12:52 Vlad Dudau

Total 22 articles. Created at 2016-04-03 12:01