manager – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Windows 10 preview delivers new emoji and easy GPU tracking

Windows Insiders have a big day today. Microsoft just released Windows 10 Preview Build 16226 for PCs and it’s got a whole host of new goodies inside. Perhaps the most important update is support for Emoji 5.0. Now you can express yourself with new snacks, characters and even dinosaurs. The build also includes an updated Task Manager with GPU tracking information, improvements to Touch Keyboard and handwriting interactions, tweaks to Storage Sense and shell improvements, including the option to share a file in File Explorer via the right-click context menu. The build also includes improvements for IT professionals, including the removal of SMB1 as part of a multi-year security upgrade. There’s also a new Remote Desktop settings page. Additionally, Windows will finally display plain-text error codes when an update fails so you can troubleshoot what exactly went wrong and how to fix it. The latest release is accessible only to Windows Insiders in the Fast Ring. You can see the full list of improvements, tweaks and add-ons at Microsoft’s website . Source: Microsoft

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Windows 10 preview delivers new emoji and easy GPU tracking

Sega Forever brings retro games to iOS and Android for free

Enlarge (credit: Sega) Sega is bringing a collection of its finest retro video games to iOS and Android devices via a new service called Sega Forever. Unlike its past mobile releases—which include the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog and Football Manager Mobile —the entire Sega Forever line-up is free-to-play and supported by ads. Players can optionally remove the ads via an in-app purchase for £2. There are five games in the Sega Forever launch line-up, consisting of the original Sonic the Hedgehog , RPG Phatasy Star II , beat ’em up Comix Zone , platformer Kid Chameleon , and the original Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) pack-in game Altered Beast . An iOS and Android version of the classic Dreamcast game Crazy Taxi launched in May, which is also free-to-play. Additional games are promised to launch every two weeks. Although the launch line-up is exclusively made up of Mega Drive games, the Sega Forever Twitter feed has teased shots of other consoles, including the SG 1000, Dreamcast, and Saturn. How Sega tackles the Saturn will be particularly interesting given the difficulty developers have had creating a working emulator for the console’s classically esoteric hardware. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Sega Forever brings retro games to iOS and Android for free

Drop your Ford off for service 24/7 using these automated kiosks

The march toward “automated everything” continues apace. Wendy’s is putting thousands of self-ordering machines in its restaurants, and now Ford is trying out a similar strategy, but, you know, for cars. The company announced it has partnered with Panasonic and GoMoto , which specializes in car dealership technologies, to create so-called Smart Service Kiosks. First, customers enter their contact information into the outdoor kiosk by using the touchscreen and scanning their driver’s license. Then they input certain key vehicle information and create a security PIN for key pick-up. Next, they can request basic maintenance tasks like alignment, oil changes and inspections, among other things. Users also have the option to enter more details about their service needs so technicians aren’t left guessing what they’re looking for. When that’s done, users drop off their keys and pick up keys for a loaner car. Once the dealership is finished with the vehicle, users will get an email alert. That email contains a QR code customers will need to scan at the kiosk in order to pick up their keys. After also entering the PIN they created earlier, car owners can pay for the service and pick up their keys any time of day. The service is beginning a 90-day trial at a dealership in Birch Run, Michigan. Tom Hodges, Dealer Connectivity Manager at Ford, says the kiosks could potentially “do for dealership service what ATMs did for the banking industry.” Indeed, that sounds like an apt comparison. The kiosks seem capable of handling basic needs, but ultimately, car owners will still need to talk to a real person for bigger or more complicated problems. Source: Ford

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Drop your Ford off for service 24/7 using these automated kiosks

France gives you legal permission to avoid work email

New Year’s Day 2017 isn’t just a chance to reflect on the past and plan for the future… in France, it’s a new lease on life for many workers. As of January 1st, the country has enacted a law that requires companies with over 50 employees to negotiate times when staff have the right to ignore email and other communications. If there’s a deal, your employer can’t punish you for refusing to look at your messages beyond set hours. Does your manager need a spreadsheet update while you’re eating dinner? Too bad. And if there’s no deal, the company still has to explicitly outline expectations (and your rights) when you’re off the clock. The deal isn’t completely revolutionary when numerous companies have binding deals that prevent them from messaging workers who’ve finished for the day. And there’s a possibility that at least some companies will squirm out of this legal obligation by refusing to compromise on expectations and settling for the charter. Technology firms in particular have worried that this might hurt their productivity (the internet runs 24/7, after all), especially for employees that want to put in extra time. Still, it’s an important step in an era when many companies use smartphones to extract more hours from the rank and file. French companies will be more likely to respect your work/life balance — even if they don’t mark certain hours as off-limits, they can’t make unexpected requests that force you to drop everything. It could also reduce the pressure to prove your corporate loyalty by working whenever you’re asked. Source: Guardian

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France gives you legal permission to avoid work email

AMD Radeon Software Crimson: A new name and a new look for Catalyst

AMD’s Radeon Software Crimson replaces Catalyst. 16 more images in gallery AMD is taking the fight directly to Nvidia with the long-overdue launch of a new driver software package and UI. Called Radeon Software Crimson, the new software replaces the old AMD Catalyst Control Center (CCC) with a flat modern UI, and simplified menus. Most importantly, AMD is promising that a new major version of the software will be released every year, with minor versions arriving every month. Each new major version will have a different, colour-themed name. The software is due to roll out later this year. Crimson has been developed in QT, a cross-platform application framework that AMD says is much quicker than the old .NET framework CCC used to use. It claims that start-up time has been reduced from eight seconds to 0.6 seconds on a mid-performance AMD E-350-based laptop; high-end desktops will be even faster. Crimson is the first in a number of software changes that AMD is implementing following the restructuring of its graphics group into the Radeon Technologies Group under the leadership of Raja Koduri. For now, AMD is only talking about the UI changes in Crimson, which is dramatically different from the old CCC. (More will be revealed about underlying driver changes at a later date, but AMD was vague about when that might be.) The new flat design features five tabs at the top for Gaming, Video, Display, Eyefinity, and System, while then buttons at the bottom for Updates, Preferences, and Notifications. In the middle, taking up the lion’s share of the window, there’s a carousel that displays announcements and promotions about games when not being used to display settings. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AMD Radeon Software Crimson: A new name and a new look for Catalyst

Top 10 Incredibly Useful Windows Programs to Have On Hand

Sometimes, all you need is the right app to get something done—whether it’s an essential everyday tool, or something a bit more specialized. Today, as part of Lifehacker’s 10th anniversary celebration , we’re looking at 10 of our favorite apps in the latter category. Read more…

Windows Memory Manager To Introduce Compression

jones_supa writes: Even though the RTM version of Windows 10 is already out of the door, Microsoft will keep releasing beta builds of the operating system to Windows Insiders. The first one will be build 10525, which introduces some color personalization options, but also interesting improvements to memory management. A new concept is called a compression store, which is an in-memory collection of compressed pages. When memory pressure gets high enough, stale pages will be compressed instead of swapping them out. The compression store will live in the System process’s working set. As usual, Microsoft will be receiving comments on the new features via the Feedback app. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Leather-Core Plywood!

The “living hinge” you see molded into clamshell packaging has always been the domain of plastic; metal and wood don’t like the repetitive stress of bending. But Bavarian fabrication firm Ackermann has worked out a way to do a living hinge in plywood. The trick is to laminate a sheet of synthetic leather into the center of the veneer stack. With miters precisely cut just shy of the leather layer, it yields a tough, hardware-free hinge. The leather can also be laminated to the outside of a material like MDF. Larger corner radii can be achieved by inserting a tube. As for what the practical applications are, Ackermann isn’t saying; the techniques were either developed as contract work for a client—”We provide services for craftsmen, trade fair and interior construction industries [ranging] from the simple milling of an individual component to the serial production of entire objects, ” they write—or out of pure experimentation. The company has some 120 employees and 14 apprentices, with traditional carpenters, designers, CNC operators and fabrication technicians all working side by side to master various materials. “I enjoy nothing more than the discovery of new techniques, ” says Manfred Weid, Manager of Technical Operations. “With permanent development we stay in proximity to the pulse of the times.”

Google Let Root Certificate For Gmail Expire

Gr8Apes writes: The certificate for Google’s intermediate certificate authority expired Saturday. The certificate was used to issue Gmail’s certificate for SMTP, and the expiration at 11:55am EDT caused many e-mail clients to stop receiving Gmail messages. While the problem affected most Gmail users using PC and mobile mail clients, Web access to Gmail was unaffected. I guess Google Calendar failed to notify someone. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Let Root Certificate For Gmail Expire

"It’s Not My Job to Plug Things In," and Other Nightmare IT Stories

We asked for the worst stories you had about working in IT. You rose to the challenge and then some. We may need to wipe and reboot our brains to recover from these. Read more…

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"It’s Not My Job to Plug Things In," and Other Nightmare IT Stories