We're moving at an impressive rate to create virtual worlds, but we have missed several critical elements. Now HP has taken a considerable step to usher us to a future where we really can mostly exist in a virtual, rather than real, office environment; and not only get more done, but be safer as well.
Controversial Plan Urges DoD to Recruit Tech Pros to WFH
The United States Defense Innovation Board has recommended that the Pentagon hire civilians to work from home who can handle classified information as a way of attracting people with technology expertise. The individuals sought "will have technical degrees and/or highly specialized skills in digital technologies and innovation needed across the U.S. Department of Defense," which is undergoing digital transformation.
Amazon, Microsoft Commit to New Linux Foundation Climate Finance Foundation
The Linux Foundation last month announced its intent to form the Linux Foundation Climate Finance Foundation to empower investors, banks, insurers, companies, governments, NGOs, and academia with AI-enhanced open-source analytics and open data to address climate risk and opportunity. Allianz, Amazon, Microsoft, and S&P Global have committed to be founding members.
Instead of legacy security models that differentiate a "trusted" interior from an untrusted external one, zero trust instead assumes that all networks and hosts are equally untrustworthy. Once this fundamental shift in assumptions is made, you start to make different decisions about what, who, and when to trust, and acceptable validation methods to confirm a request or transaction is allowed.
Microsoft Ignite and Dominating the Future of Tech the Right Way
At Microsoft Ignite last month, the breadth and focus that Microsoft demonstrated were arguably well beyond what any other company is capable of doing. This lesson is worth remembering because Microsoft, unlike its peers facing antitrust action, is showing how to become powerful without becoming a threat. The result is far more powerful and far less risky than the company's prior path.
The Risks and Consequences of Lax Patch Management
Last month, a woman with a life-threatening condition passed away after hackers crashed the IT systems of a major hospital in the city of Dusseldorf. Incidents like this raise the question of why corporations do not patch vulnerabilities as soon as software manufacturers issue a fix.
Lack of Qualified Linux Talent Impedes Enterprise Move to the Clouds
Even in these changing times of shuttered shops and pandemic-driven corporate layoffs, a flood of tech jobs goes unfilled due to a lack of Linux skills among IT workers. That combination is contributing to a slowdown or delay in enterprise plans to migrate their local computing base to public cloud operations, as an already existing Linux tech pool gap has widened since the pandemic.
Surely spurred by the work-from-home necessities of 2020, people have connected a multitude of non-business devices to their corporate networks, making it progressively difficult to implement cybersecurity because every device is a potential weak ...
The stampede from offices to working from home has strained IT security teams to their limits. As a result, SMBs find they need to get more bang for fewer bucks to fight off cybersecurity threats. However, even IT departments with limited...
Women in Tech: 20 Trailblazers Share Their Journeys
Successful women in the tech trenches share their insights and tackle subjects ranging from how to search out a strong mentor to how to be one -- from how to advance in a large company to how to start your own firm.
This book is an excellent guide for students considering STEM courses, graduates pondering job choices, and career changers at any stage in life. It's also a useful tool for school and career counselors, recruiters, and HR pros eager to diversify their workplaces.
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Just before the weekend, Google revealed a new initiative that helps pick up Android security flaws in non-Pixel devices.The Android Partner Vulnerability Initiative will manage security flaws it discovers, specific to third-party Android devices.
Google didn't explicitly call out any company names in a blog post, but a bug tracker for the program mentioned several manufacturers. Huawei had issues with insecure device backups in 2019, for example. Oppo and Vivo phones had sideloading vulnerabilities. ZTE had weaknesses in its message service and browser autofill.
Google notified all of the vendors before disclosing the flaws, and most if not all appear to have been fixed. The initiative is conveniently timed at a point when Google itself is trying to sell us on its new Pixel phone series — which doesn't offer such vulnerabilities. Or maybe I'm extra skeptical on a Monday morning.
GEEP Canada was supposed to dismantle them, instead.
Apple has filed a lawsuit against its former contractor, GEEP Canada, for allegedly reselling over 100,000 iPhones, iPads and Watches that were supposed to be disassembled and recycled. Apparently, at least 11,766 pounds of Apple devices left GEEP's premises without being destroyed.
Apple discovered the resales after auditing more than 500,000 iPhones, Watches and iPads between 2015 and 2017. It discovered that 18 percent of those devices (103,845 in total) were still accessing the internet through cellular networks. That doesn't count WiFi-only devices, so the figure is likely much higher.
GEEP hasn't denied the theft, but claims that three employees stole the devices to benefit themselves, not the company. Then again, those employees were, in fact, GEEP's senior executives. Continue reading.
A "vector-space" bird's eye parking view is coming to Teslas, but you'll need to buy the Full Self-Driving (FSD) package. It's, well, a lot: an $8,000 upgrade if you buy FSD with a new car, and more than a little prohibitive if you aren't keen on the bundle's other features.
It's unclear exactly how the bird's eye view will behave, but it will clearly rely on the cameras present on many Teslas to generate a simulated look at your parking space. Musk didn't say when the feature might be ready. And yes, you might have seen similar-looking features like this on other cars already, like the Taycan, and well, my parents' Toyota. Continue reading.
Can Milla Jovovich work her 'Resident Evil' magic again?
After several years of development, finally, we get the first glimpse of the Monster Hunter movie in action. A teaser for Paul W.S. Anderson's production offers a taste of the climactic battles you'd expect from a MH movie.
Monster Hunter has a passionate fanbase, but it might not be quite as iconic as the lucrative Resident Evil series and the subsequent movie juggernaut — which was mostly helmed by Anderson and starred Jovovich. Continue reading.
Some early hands-on sessions for Japanese media means people are finally getting to try Sony's console. The takeaways? It's apparently quite silent, so you might not have to worry about a noisy fan detracting from your immersive gaming experience. The DualSense controller's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers add "tactile sensation and weight," 4gamer said, and the buttons aren't as noisy as on the PS4's DualShock 4.
None of the testers got to show the PS5's interface, however. Sony has promised a "whole new visual language" for the console's UI, but that, for now, remains a secret.! Continue reading.
If you're looking for a phone that's different, then I think LG has the answer. The LG Wing has a design unlike any other device, with a screen that rotates to reveal a second, smaller display.
Richard Lai spent time with a pre-production unit and couldn't resist fiddling with the screen: "Once I got the hang of it, it did feel like playing with a large fidget toy made for one's right hand." Before you flip through the highlights from Friday and the rest of last week further down in this roundup, check out his video to see it in action, and imagine what other off-the-wall phone designs you'd like to see one of these companies attempt.
Google Pixel 5, Surface Laptop Go and our iOS 14 review
At Google's Launch Night In event this week, the company revealed details on its latest phones as well as the new Chromecast and Nest Audio speaker. Not to be outdone, Microsoft dropped some new Surface news the next morning, launching the Surface Laptop Go and updated Surface Pro X. Cherlynn and UK bureau chief Mat Smith break down all the news on this week's podcast, before going over some takeaways from our iOS 14 review.
Sleep tracking in watchOS 7 lags behind what competitors can do.
If you were hoping for huge changes with the new Apple Watch then you're out of luck. But as Dana Wollman explains, "we'll never complain when an already great smartwatch gets practical improvements like faster performance, longer battery life and quicker charging." Continue reading.
While Amazon's annual shopping event will take place on October 13 and 14, there are still some deals worth considering right now (not to mention, a couple of early Prime Day deals for members on the third-generation Echo Dot and Fire TV Recast).
Here are all the best deals from the week that you can still snag today, and remember to follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for more updates. Continue reading.
Plenty of details about the Pixel 5 had already leaked in advance, and we also got an idea of what it would include from the Pixel 4a, which arrived this summer. Yep, we got the same style screen, with a pinhole front-facing camera, and as expected, the Pixel 5 arrives with a 6-inch, 2340 x 1080 screen. There's no XL model this year, just this single model.
Google is also bringing back the fingerprint sensor that went missing from last year's Pixel 4. Gone is the face unlock feature that didn't quite set the world on fire. Also missing this year are the odd touchless controls that were powered by an ultra-wideband radar sensor above the screen. The Pixel 5 has a dual camera on the back. But instead of going with the standard and telephoto arrangement, Google swapped out the telephoto lens for an ultra-wide angle shooter.
If you're interested, you'll have to wait till the end of October to get one. Continue reading.
It has only been one month since Intel rebranded Project Athena as Intel Evo, and the list of certified ultrabooks just keeps growing. If you've forgotten the details, Devindra Hardawar explained that all laptops you see with the tag have been tested to meet a series of benchmarks: wake from sleep in less than a second, support fast charging and offer at least nine hours of real-world battery life with 1080p screens.
Dell and Lenovo showed off their first Evo laptops earlier this week, and now HP announced several new machines that meet the mark, including this 14-inch Spectre x360.
While the XPS lineup has squeezed extra space into smaller frames by going bezel-less, this one adds extra screen area by using a 3:2 aspect ratio that should add 20 percent more vertical viewing space. The company claims you can get up to 17 hours of battery life, and if a 13-inch laptop feels a little cramped but 15-inch monsters are too heavy then this one might be just right when it goes on sale in November starting at $1,200.
For those that don't want to spend $1,000 on a notebook.
Microsoft rolled out a sneak attack of laptops and accessories yesterday morning, and the most intriguing might be this laptop. The Surface Laptop Go is a sleeker (and cuter) notebook with a 12.4-inch screen. And similar to the Surface Go 2, it's being positioned as a low-cost device, with a starting price of $549. But unlike the Go 2, a compact machine that quickly gets more expensive as you spec it up, Microsoft claims even the entry level Laptop Go should feel pretty snappy even at its cheapest price.
With 10th generation Intel Core i5 processors and up to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage inside, the cute new PC has a full-sized keyboard and touchscreen. You can pre-order the Surface Laptop Go now, and it'll be available in stores on October 13th. Continue reading.
It supports anywhere from one to four players, as long as everyone has their own Switch.
In a couple of weeks, Mario Kart will mix things up with the real world in this new game that uses remote control cars you control via your Switch. We know that each camera-equipped car costs $99, and that players will design their own courses using cardboard gates similar to Nintendo Labo accessories. The company recommends open space of at least 10 x 12 feet to play the game, so tiny apartments might be squeezed out, but at least the karts can handle rugs. Kris Naudus has all the details, as well as a developer video, right here. Continue reading.
If your network doesn't support mmWave 5G, you're overpaying.
The US is paying a $100 premium for the Pixel 5 compared to the rest of the world. Google built a less expensive Pixel 5 without mmWave support (that is apparently what you're paying for), but you can't get it in the US. So, even if you buy the phone unlocked here, you're paying for the mmWave technology inside it, regardless of whether you're going to use it.
Nathan Ingraham explains the differences — and why it might not be worth it. Continue reading.
You've probably seen super edited, airbrushed-to-death pictures all over Instagram and wondered if you'll ever attain that incredible level of perfection. Some smartphone cameras turn on some sort of filter or smoothing effect by default, and now, as part of its Digital Wellbeing initiative, Google has announced a design framework meant to provide more control and transparency around selfie filters. At least, for its phones.
This feature will start rolling out in the Pixel 4a, where face retouching is turned off by default, and an upcoming update will use more neutral language and symbols for these tools as opposed to words with value attached to them like "beautifying" or "perfecting." One of these changes, for example, is going with the label "subtle" instead of "natural," which might imply that a lightly edited picture is "natural."
Also, if you decide to use a retouching tool, you'll see more information about how each setting is applied. Continue reading.
