microsoft – Page 279

Gmail will stop working on Chrome for XP and Vista this year

If it’s been some time since you’ve updated your Chrome browser, you might see a banner at the top of Gmail’s interface on February 8th. It’ll contain a reminder to update to Chrome version 55 from 53 and below, since the newer iteration comes with several big security updates. That banner will go away after you update — unless you’re still using Windows XP or Vista. Google stopped releasing Chrome updates for those two after version 49, since Microsoft no longer supports its older Windows platforms. So, what will happen if you don’t — or can’t — update Chrome? Well, Gmail will work like usual throughout 2017. Sometime in December, though, you’ll start being redirected to the basic HTML version of the email service and will be more vulnerable to security risks. Google says the best thing you can do is upgrade and ditch XP or Vista ASAP. Source: Google Suite Updates

View post:
Gmail will stop working on Chrome for XP and Vista this year

LibreOffice 5.3 Released, Touted As ‘One of the Most Feature-Rich Releases’ Ever

An anonymous reader shares a report: A new month, and a brand new version of open-source office suite LibreOffice is now available to download. And what a release it is. LibreOffice 5.3 introduces a number of key new features and continues work on improving the look and feel of the app across all major platforms. The Document Foundation describes LibreOffice 5.3 as “one of the most feature-rich releases in the history of the application.” One of the headline features is called MUFFIN interface, a new toolbar design similar to the Microsoft Office Ribbon UI. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft’s Market Value Tops $500 Billion Again After 17 Years

Microsoft’s market capitalization topped $500 billion for the first time since 2000 on Friday, after the technology giant’s stock rose following another quarter of results that beat Wall Street’s expectations. From a report: Shares of the world’s biggest software company rose as much as 2.1 percent to $65.64, an all-time high, in early trading, valuing the company at $510.37 billion. The last time Microsoft was valued more was in March 2000, during the heyday of the dotcom era, when it had a market value of a little above $550 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data. Despite the gains, Microsoft still lags Apple’s market capitalization of about $642 billion and Google-parent Alphabet’s market value of a little more than $570 billion. Microsoft reported second-quarter results on Thursday that beat analysts’ average estimate for both revenue and profit, mainly due to its fast-growing cloud computing business. The company’s profit and revenue have now topped Wall Street’s expectations in seven of the last eight quarters. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read the original post:
Microsoft’s Market Value Tops $500 Billion Again After 17 Years

Google Translate Is About To Get a Lot Better, Thanks To Its Machine Learning Push

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is offering a big new update that should affect anyone who’s ever used Google’s translation services. From a report on CNBC: The new version will be rolling out in 2017 via Google Cloud, Pichai said. “We have improved our translation ability more in one single year than all our improvements over the last 10 years combined, ” Pichai told investors in a quarterly call, after parent company Alphabet reported mixed results. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Firefox 51 Arrives With HTTP Warning, WebGL 2 and FLAC Support

Reader Krystalo writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 51 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The new version includes a new warning for websites which collect passwords but don’t use HTTPS, WebGL 2 support for better 3D graphics, and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) playback. Mozilla doesn’t break out the exact numbers for Firefox, though the company does say “half a billion people around the world” use the browser. In other words, it’s a major platform that web developers target — even in a world increasingly dominated by mobile apps. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See original article:
Firefox 51 Arrives With HTTP Warning, WebGL 2 and FLAC Support

Windows is getting its own built-in book store in the Creators Update

Enlarge (credit: MSPoweruser ) The Windows Store—which already includes apps, games, movies, and TV shows—is going to include books in the Creators Update. This is according to pictures obtained by MSPoweruser . Based on images from an internal Windows 10 Mobile build, books will have their own dedicated section within the Store. The whole process will work much the same way as it does for any other purchase. It appears that Microsoft is not building a dedicated reading application for these purchases. Instead, the Edge browser in the Creators Update has been updated to include support for EPUB books, affording some customization of their appearance in the browser’s reading mode. This isn’t Microsoft’s first foray into the electronic book world. Long, long ago it had an app called Reader, which supported a proprietary HTML-based format. Reader was developed for Pocket PC and Windows Mobile, and notably, it was in Reader that Microsoft first used ClearType sub-pixel anti-aliasing. A Reader app was also available for desktop Windows, though not Windows Phone. The company even had its own online catalog of e-books using its proprietary format, which linked to third-party sites actually selling the books. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View article:
Windows is getting its own built-in book store in the Creators Update

JetBlue Giving All Passengers Free In-Flight ‘Fly-Fi’ High-Speed Wi-Fi

BrianFagioli quotes a report from BetaNews: Today, JetBlue announced something miraculous for travelers. Every one of its passengers will have access to free in-flight high-speed Wi-Fi, which it calls “Fly-Fi.” This is on every single aircraft in its fleet. In other words, if you are flying JetBlue, you get free high-speed internet “JetBlue’s Fly-Fi, which clocks in at broadband speeds beating sluggish and pricey Wi-Fi offerings onboard other carriers, keeps customers connected with an Internet experience similar to what they have at home, including the ability to stream video and use multiple devices at once. The service enables JetBlue to deliver Amazon Video streaming entertainment to customers onboard to their personal devices, as well as web surfing and chatting on favorite messaging apps, ” says JetBlue. The vice president of JetBlue, Jamie Perry, explains, “It’s 2017 and our customers expect to be connected everywhere, whether that be from the comfort of their sofa or 35, 000 feet above it. That’s why we’re so proud that JetBlue is now the only airline to offer free, high-speed Wi-Fi, live TV and movies for all customers on every plane.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More here:
JetBlue Giving All Passengers Free In-Flight ‘Fly-Fi’ High-Speed Wi-Fi

Apple’s Share of PC Users Drops To A Five-Year Low

Windows 10 is installed on 24.5% of devices — but that’s only half the story. “Apple’s Mac share of personal computers worldwide fell to a five-year low in December, ” reports Computerworld, adding that Linux and Windows “both benefited, with increases of around a half percentage point during 2016.” An anonymous reader quotes their report: According to web analytics vendor Net Applications, Apple’s desktop and notebook operating system — formerly OS X, now macOS — powered just 6.1% of all personal computers last month, down from 7% a year ago and a peak of 9.6% as recently as April 2016… The Mac’s 6.1% user share in December was the lowest mark recorded by Net Applications since August 2011, more than five years ago… In October, the company reported sales of 4.9 million Macs for the September quarter, a 14% year-over-year decline and the fourth straight quarterly downturn. Apple’s sales slide during the past 12 months has been steeper than for the personal computer industry as a whole, according to industry researchers from IDC and Gartner, a 180-degree shift from the prior 30 or so quarters, when the Mac’s growth rate repeatedly beat the business average. Apple’s success through 2016 was “fueled by Microsoft’s stumbles with Windows 8 and a race-to-the-bottom mentality among rival OEMs, ” according to the article, which also notes that the user share for Linux exceeded 2% in June, and reached 2.3% by November. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Iran censored porn so hard it broke the internet in Hong Kong

If you had trouble visiting explicit websites in the last few days, the fault may have come from an unexpected source: Iran. According to a new report from The Verge , a recent attempt to block pornography websites in the country’s borders hampered access in Russia, Hong Kong and other nations in the region. What happened? Apparently, Iran’s national telecom abused the honor system. The issue is an ancient, insecure and essential part of the internet called Border Gateway Protocol. It’s a commonly used method service provider use to exchange and distribute routing information — the insturctions your computer uses to find web addresses. The only problem is that BGP kind of works on the honor system : there’s no standard in place to stop someone from putting forth a false routing path and taking a site down. It happened in 2008, when Pakistan accidental blocked YouTube . Turkey once filtered the majority of traffic from Amazon, Microsoft, CNN and other sites through its own servers. When Iran used BGP to spoof traffic away from a few hundred porn sites, the false routes spread — blocking users as far away as Hong Kong. It’s not clear if it’s an honest mistake, or if the wider blocking was intentional, but it also wasn’t a careful solution. Iran’s networks are a major routing center for the region, and it’s easy for malicious or false BGP data to spread from Iran’s sources. The issue is mostly resolved down, with exterior networks blocking the false routes — but the event serves as a good reminder: the internet is fragile, and open to attack. Browse carefully, my friends. Source: Verge

Excerpt from:
Iran censored porn so hard it broke the internet in Hong Kong

“Neon” screenshots leak, showing off a refreshed Windows 10 look and feel

Enlarge / Neon introduces the use of transparency, such as on the left panel of Groove Music. (credit: MSPoweruser ) After reports last year that Microsoft was going to revise and update the design language used for Windows applications, some screenshots have leaked to MSPoweruser giving an indication of how the appearance is going to change. Windows 10 presently uses a design language known as MDL2 (Microsoft Design Language 2), which is an evolved version of the Metro design first introduced with Windows Phone 7. Both Metro and MDL2 put an emphasis on clean lines, simple geometric shapes, attractive typography, photographic imagery, and minimal use of ornamentation. Both heavily borrow from responsive Web design concepts. Google’s Material design language builds on similar themes, adding transitions and animations to better show how pieces of information are related. The new Microsoft look is named Neon. It continues the evolution of Metro—it retains the emphasis on clean text and a generally flat appearance but adds certain elements of translucency (which the company is calling “acrylic”) and greater use of animation and movement. Additional new elements are “Conscious UI,” wherein an acrylic element might change depending on what’s behind the current app, and “Connected Animations.” The current preview of the Groove Music app, available to users of Windows Insider builds, already includes Connected Animations. Headers and pictures shrink as you scroll down the list of songs. As with Metro before it, much of this is already familiar and commonplace in Web design. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read the article:
“Neon” screenshots leak, showing off a refreshed Windows 10 look and feel

Ken May

Tag: microsoft