The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has confirmed that its new payments platform rollout is on schedule to begin before the end of the year. Addressing the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics on Friday, RBA Governor Philip Lowe said his organisation’s work on building the infrastructure behind the new payments platform is on schedule and currently undergoing industry testing. “Developments look on track to allow […]
AirMap has raised $26 million in a Series B round led by Microsoft Ventures. The investment arms of Airbus, Qualcomm, Rakuten, Sony, and Yuneec also contributed to the round, as well as existing investors General Catalyst and Lux Capital. The latest round brings the total amount raised by the Santa Monica, California-based startup to $43.6 million. The Internet of Things 10 types of enterprise deployments As businesses […]
Vue Smart Glasses Whether experimenting with the enclosed headset of an HTC Vive, the augmented reality of Microsoft’s HoloLens, or even the headset theater from Avegant or Vuzix, it’s virtually impossible to use a head-mounted product without attracting generally unwelcome attention. Companies that make these products all want to make them less of an encumbrance. But their markedness eliminates any notion that they would be used as […]
A HoloLens display visualization Microsoft “You take the high road and I’ll take the low road and I’ll be in Scotland before you,” assert modernized lyrics of The Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond. The 176 year-old song is a metaphor for the state of virtual reality. Scotland represents a promised land of market leadership, Oculus and HTC, with their pricey high-end products, are taking the high road, […]
Qualcomm is stepping up its Internet of things game with support for Android Things OS, integration with Amazon Web Services and two systems-on-chips that aggregate a bevy of standards. special feature Louisville and the Future of the Smart City Louisville, Kentucky is building a unique bridge between the smart city and the smart home. Here’s what communities and citizens can learn about the benefits of the onrushing […]
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said India has ‘entrepreneurial energy,’ and that he hopes his company can harness India’s move to make its vast biometric database available to app developers. In Bangalore Monday, Mr. Nadella said he wanted Indians to be able to access Microsoft products using their Aadhar ID cards, and that his company was teaming up with Flipkart, India’s rival to Amazon. Here are five […]
ZDNet Google and Microsoft have pledged changes to their search engines which will make life harder for users seeking illegal, copyrighted material. Google, Microsoft, and the UK government have worked out their differences and reached a truce over the availability of pirated material online. While removing links to any website which claims to offer copyrighted material smacks of censorship, the tech giants have offered to sign up […]
Samsung’s standing in the United States plummeted by 42 places, a new reputation poll reveals. Considering how the whole Galaxy Note 7 fiasco — among other things — stirred up the tech world for both consumers and manufacturers alike, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the South Korean brand is taking quite a hit regarding its position in the market. Samsung’s Reputation In The Eyes […]
The most successful artificial intelligence (AI) systems will be those comprising an emotional intelligence almost indistinguishable from human-to-human interaction, according to Bronwyn van der Merwe, group director at Fjord Australia and New Zealand — Accenture Interactive’s design and innovation arm. While the concept of AI is not new, in 2017 van der Merwe expects emotional intelligence to emerge as the driving force behind what she called the […]
Microsoft may have decided to nix its HoloLens 2 headset which was expected to debut in early 2017 and decided to go straight to version 3 in 2019. The decision to skip version 2 and go straight to 3 is according to a report on February 19 from Brad Sams on Thurrott.com. Sams cites multiple anonymous sources as saying Microsoft’s next HoloLens release is two years away. […]
Microsoft is reportedly looking to skip the second version of the HoloLens and jump straight to version three instead. For the unfamiliar, the mixed reality HoloLens headset went on sale in March 2016 and the developer edition was priced at $3,000. However, this HoloLens headset was only intended for developers and people have been waiting with bated breath for the consumer variant to arrive. With no news […]
The quaint cobblestone streets of the historic Gastown district of Vancouver belie its status as a fast-growing technology hub. Drawing on links with nearby Seattle, and San Francisco further south, a tech boom in Canada’s third-largest city has pulled in tens of thousands of skilled workers and start-up entrepreneurs in recent years, sparking a fierce fight for the limited supply of office space. Now the commercial centre […]
Submitted by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com, I am unsure who first came up with the idea of taxing robots, but the proposal has been embraced by academia, socialists, and in general, the radical Left. Today, entrepreneur Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, endorsed the idea. What does Gates want to do with the money collected? Here’s the answer: Flush it down the toilet. In a Quartz interview, Bill […]
India’s government is allowing app developers to use its biometric database of more than a billion citizens as part of an initiative called “India Stack.” The developers can use customers’ fingerprint and iris scans to compare against records stored as part of the government’s vast biometric data-collection program, to create new ways to access insurance, banking, healthcare and employment. As outlined in a Wall Street Journal article, […]
Taj El Khayat to bolster development in key markets, with security and cloud to the fore 19 February 2017 Dubai, United Arab Emirates – F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) has appointed Taj El Khayat as its new director for the Gulf, Levant & North Africa region. Reporting directly to Diego Arrabal, Middle East and Africa VP, F5 Networks, El Khayat will lead a team comprising of salespeople, channel […]
The fate of Munich’s Linux project is only part of the story of open source software. Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto After a nearly decade-long project to move away from Windows onto Linux, Munich has all but decided on a dramatic u-turn. It’s likely that, by 2021, the city council will start to replace PCs running LiMux (its custom version of Ubuntu) with Windows 10. Going back maybe 15 […]
The Chuwi Hi13 looks like the Microsoft Surface Book on the outside, but its insides and price say otherwise. Many Chinese manufacturers produce devices that will never reach North American shores, save through online importers, but Chuwi is an exception that sells its offerings directly through Amazon. So when the company preps a new system like the Hi13, it may be of greater interest than just to […]
There are a range of jobs being spun up with Microsoft Azure instances, many with attractive salaries. The Azure-related position for which companies are paying the most is that of enterprise architect. Photo: HubSpot In the United States, companies report allocating $125,000 a year for their Azure architects, on average. Developers and sales and marketing specialists adept in Azure, Microsoft’s cloud-based infrastructure offering, follow at $100,000 a […]
When Microsoft rolled out the “Windows as a Service” tagline for Windows 10, most of us assumed it was just another marketing ploy. But as we approach Windows 10’s two-year anniversary, it’s becoming apparent that there’s some substance behind the label. And for Windows power users and IT pros, the ramifications are just beginning to become apparent. Microsoft has published a handful of low-key technical articles covering […]
Credit: Microsoft “Dear #MongoDB users, we welcome you in #Azure #DocumentDB.” That’s the heading on a February 16 Microsoft blog post that’s attempting to appeal to MongoDB devs who may have been affected and/or spooked by recent ransomware attacks on unsecured MongoDB databases. In January, as many as 27,000 poorly configured MongoDB servers were compromised, with attackers wiping data and demanding ransom for its return. In its […]
Critically acclaimed Cities: Skylines is calling the Xbox One its home pretty soon. Cities: Skylines publisher Paradox Interactive broke the good news in its official website. Xbox One owners will have the chance to recreate the hit Windows city-building game experience in their home consoles. The game is set for release this Spring 2017. Sky-High With Features Paradox Interactive released the details in its official Cities: Skylines website. The Xbox One port comes […]
Estimated failure rates from single event upsets at the transistor, integrated circuit and device level for the last three semiconductor architectures. Credit: Bharat Bhuva, Vanderbilt University You may not realize it but alien subatomic particles raining down from outer space are wreaking low-grade havoc on your smartphones, computers and other personal electronic devices. When your computer crashes and you get the dreaded blue screen or your smartphone […]
Amazon Echo: Now with Outlook.com calendars. Users of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker can now set Outlook as a default calendar for the Alexa service to access. Outlook users can set Microsoft’s web-based calendar as the default option for their Amazon Echo and other Alexa-powered devices: Microsoft said this includes accounts with email addresses ending in @outlook.com, @hotmail.com and @live.com. 10 steps How to secure your IoT deployment […]
We are in an era of “Hyperscale companies” such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple with limited opportunities for startups warns Sam Altman, head of Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s influential investment group and educator. In his 2017 YC Annual Letter Altman wrote: “We’re now in the era of hyperscale technology companies…Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft have powerful advantages “ “I expect that they […]
