MICROSOFT'S VISION FOR LINKEDIN IS ABOUT TYING ITS BUSINESS DATA INTO OFFICE AND OTHER SERVICES

Source: www.itnews.com

Now that Microsoft’s massive $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn has officially closed, it’s time for the next step: figuring out how its massive store of business information can best be used by Microsoft and its customers. 

Building upon the company’s integration plan outlined earlier this year, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella laid out a set of plans for short-term integration with LinkedIn (in a blog post on LinkedIn, natch), with advantages for both consumers and business customers.

Perhaps the most interesting will be closer ties between resume functions in Word and in LinkedIn, so that users drafting resumes in Word will be able to update their LinkedIn profiles automatically. Nadella suggests that LinkedIn updates will propagate through Windows 10’s Action Center, and that your LinkedIn identity will be used in Outlook and in Office.

Business customers will be able to benefit from LinkedIn Learning online education, available as a feature of the paid Office 365 subscription. LinkedIn Lookup—a competitor of sorts to Microsoft’s Delve, which aggregates information about your colleagues and contacts—will be integrated into Office 365, Nadella wrote. LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator will be tied to Dynamics 365, as an aid to what Nadella called “social selling” to customers.

Finally, there’s the content angle. Interestingly, Nadella said Microsoft plans to open a “business news desk” across its content ecosystem and MSN.com, possibly providing its own branded media content. Unfortunately, there’s a downside, too: “extending the reach of Sponsored Content"—read: advertisements—"across Microsoft properties.” 

Why this matters: Microsoft clearly bought LinkedIn with the goal of adding to its store of digital intelligence, specifically business intelligence. Some of that will bubble up fairly quickly to consumers, such as the Word-LinkedIn integration. But the deeper, more powerful goals involve analyzing business trends and providing Office 365 subscribers the knowledge they need to get their jobs done. That’s more difficult to achieve and measure, but will probably be the true test of whether that $26 billion was worth it in the end. 

This story, "Microsoft's vision for LinkedIn is about tying its business data into Office and other services" was originally published by PCWorld.

Banks commit to Azure cloud as blockchain platform

Banks commit to Azure cloud as blockchain platform

Distributed ledger venture moves forward.

Microsoft looks set to to gain a foothold in the global financial market through a formalised partnership with the R3 consortium of banks to develop open source blockchain ledger applications, the company said today.
Blockchain emerged from the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin, and provides a transparent, distributed ledger to record financial and other transactions, including asset management, contracts and settlements.
Financial institutions are interested in blockchain as it is cheaper to operate than clearing houses and similar third-parties currently required to verify transactions. The technology is also more secure and substantially faster than legacy financial processes.
The partnership means the R3 partner banks will use the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to build blockchain-as-a-service applications.
The R3 consortium now has 45 member banks, the company said. Among these are the National Australia Bank (NAB), which joined the project in October last year; Macquarie Bank; Commonwealth Bank; and Westpac.
Globally, other R3 member banks include Nordea, JP Morgan, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Mizuho Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.

Read more: http://www.itnews.com.au/news/banks-commit-to-azure-cloud-as-blockchain-platform-417761#ixzz44xGMmkDjSource: online news

Google plugs 15 critical security holes in Android update

Google plugs 15 critical security holes in Android update

Media handling continues to cause headaches.

Google's April collection of security updates for its Android mobile operating system takes care of no fewer than 15 vulnerabilities rated as critical, the company said.
As with past security alerts, the mediaserver component of Android has emerged as one of the most vulnerable.
Since mediaserver is a privileged Android operating system feature that can be reached during video playback, while viewing images and audio, and while sending multimedia text messages, attackers can use the vulnerabilties in the component to remotely execute code on user devices.
Five more mediaserver flaws have been rectified in the April security update, along with a related remote code execution vulnerability in media codecs used by the operating system component.
A remote code execution flaw in the libstagefright library has also been plugged by Google.
Elsewhere, security researchers have uncovered three remote code execution flaws in Android's implementation of the dynamic host configuration protocol daemon background process, which is used to automatically configure devices with internet protocol addresses and gateways.
All three are rated as critical as the DHCP client runs as a privileged process with extensive system access.
The April security update also takes care of two privilege escalation bugs in the Android kernel that could allow malicious apps to run code with the potential to permanently compromise devices, which would require reflashing of the operating system to repair them, Google said.
Qualcomm modules used in Android for the system processor and radio-frequency component can also be abused to permanently compromise devices, again requiring a reflash to fix the problem.
A further 13 vulnerabilities rated as high and another eight said to be moderate, were also patched in the April update.
Last month, Google was forced to issue an out-of-band update to address the CVE-2015-1805 rooting vulnerability in the Linux kernel, which was discovered last year but remained unpatched in Android.
The April patches are delivered to Nexus devices as an over-the-air update, and Google has also made new firmware images available on its developer website. Patches will be released as source code to Google's Android partners over the coming few days, the company said.

Read more: http://www.itnews.com.au/News/Article.aspx?id=417760#ixzz44xFjYjjD
Source: online news

UN Broadband Commission to government leaders: broadband can be yourmost powerful development catalyst

High-speed networks and services essential to meet
UN Sustainable Development Goals

The Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development’s 13^th full meeting, held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, yesterday, reached consensus on the need for a new set of connectivity targets to help governments more effectively harness broadband networks and services to drive progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Commissioners agreed that broadband networks, services and applications have enormous potential to deliver dramatic results in education, health and socio-economic growth. A recent informal meeting of Commissioners at the World Economic Forum in Davos emphasized that connecting the unconnected and generating sufficient investment opportunities for the universal deployment of broadband networks, services and applications will be a key factor in achieving all 17 global goals.
Debate in Dubai around potential new targets focused on the importance of adding targets to measure the utilization of selected broadband-enabled public services, the choice of statistical indicators to accurately gauge broadband access at the country and community levels, as well as the choice of data sources and methodologies for generating accurate, reliable measurement. The Commission also agreed on the importance of developing National Digital Scorecards to measure national progress towards achieving broadband targets.

The Commission’s 60+ leaders and experts from government, UN agencies, civil society and a broad spectrum of business sectors will now work to formulate concrete, measurable broadband connectivity goals that could be agreed by the next full meeting of the Commission in New York in September.

“Agreement on new targets in September would serve as the next stepping stone to the Commission’s vision of ‘broadband for all’, said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao, who serves as co-Vice Chair of the Commission alongside UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. “Broadband represents a powerful way to accelerate progress towards the attainment of the 17 SDGs, and new broadband networks and services will play a key role in the delivery of education, healthcare and basic social services, particularly for chronically disadvantaged communities.”

ITU already tracks broadband deployment in the Commission’s annual State of Broadband report, which includes rankings of nations worldwide in terms of broadband policy, affordability and uptake.
“The world is going through a staggering confluence of emerging technological breakthroughs that can open vast new horizons for growth and development,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. “There remain 1.3 billion people without electricity today, and over four billion people without access to the Internet. Access and connectivity are absolutely crucial for societies across the world. This is why the message of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development is so important.”

The latest edition of the Commission’s State of Broadband report, released last September, showed that broadband Internet is failing to reach those who could benefit most, with 57% of the world’s people still offline and unable to take advantage of the enormous economic and social benefits the Internet can offer.
Established in 2010, as a top-level advocacy body promoting broadband as an accelerator of global development, the Broadband Commission is chaired by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Mexico’s Carlos Slim Helú.

The Commission recently welcomed ten new high-level members:
      - Abdulaziz Salem Al Ruwais, Governor, Communication and Information Technology Commission, Saudi Arabia
     - Jean-Yves Charlier, CEO, VimpelCom
     - Scott Gegenheimer, CEO, Zain Group
     - Mats Granryd, Director-General, GSMA
     - Ramin Guluzade, Minister of Communication and High Technologies, Azerbaijan
     - Baroness Beeban Kidron, award-winning filmmaker and 5Rights Campaign champion
     - Philipp Metzger, Director-General, Swiss Federal Communications Office
     - Catherine Novelli, US Under-Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy & Environment
     - Rupert Pearce, CEO, Inmarsat
     - Rajeev Suri, CEO, Nokia

The new members bring the total number of Commissioners to 62, including the four principals.
This latest meeting of the Commission was held at the invitation of UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and Broadband CommissionerSunny Varkey, and was held alongside the Varkey Foundation’s Global Education and Skills Forum. The gathering welcomed a number of special guests, including leading international journalist and commentator Fareed Zakaria.

The meeting also complemented a joint ITU/UNESCO Policy Forum held during UNESCO Mobile Learning Week, which brought together governments ministers of ICT and education to examine ways the role that policies and cross-sectoral collaboration can play in fostering innovation and the use of mobile technology to improve the quality, equity and accessibility of education.
Source: online news ITU

Apple attack sidesteps safeguards to threaten iPhones

Apple attack sidesteps safeguards to threaten iPhones

A new attack on iPhones requires theft, deception and the planning of a chess grandmaster.
Check Point, a cybersecurity firm, says it's found an attack that could trick iPhone users into downloading a malicious app. The attack, which they're calling SideStepper, takes advantage of specialized corporate software known as enterprise apps.

It also needs thievery, a setup and poor decision-making by the iPhone user, said Check Point researcher Avi Rembaum. "What we've seen, however, is that the enterprise program has nevertheless become a target for attacks."

That said, there's no indication this exact attack has been carried out by hackers.
SideStepper, which Check Point will present at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Singapore on Friday, relies on attackers getting hold of a stolen enterprise certificate. Those certificates are bits of software on enterprise apps -- you know, your company's annoying corporate benefits or sales apps -- that prove they're legitimate.

To get a malicious enterprise app on your phone, an attacker would sign a malicious app with a stolen or otherwise illegitimate enterprise certificate. The attacker would text or email you a link and try to convince you to click on it and go to a website to create an account from your phone.

You might think only someone clueless would do that. But imagine if the hacker spoofed your boss's email account and told you to set up the new account. You might do it without thinking if you're blasting through your email on the train before your morning coffee.

Once you've created the account, the attacker can install the malicious app on your phone.

Apple says the attack doesn't count as a flaw in iOS, the software that runs iPhones.
"We've built safeguards into iOS to help warn users of potentially harmful content like this," an Apple spokesman said in a statement. Apple also encourages iPhone users to only download from a trusted source, like the App Store.
Check Point's Rembaum says Apple's system has a lot of safeguards, but it's still vulnerable.

Apple re-issues iOS 9.3 after crippling older devices, confusing customers

Apple today replaced the iOS 9.3 update with a new version after the original crippled some older devices last week, and confused large numbers of unaffected customers when their iPhones and iPads told them that they weren't connected to the Internet when in truth they were.

The initial version of iOS 9.3, which Apple issued a week ago, threw owners of older hardware -- iPhone 5S and earlier, and iPad Air and earlier -- for a loop when it asked them for their Apple ID and password, normally not a step in the iOS update process.
Apple published a support document that acknowledged the problem and provided solutions.
Last week, Apple pulled iOS 9.3 from its servers in an effort to prevent more people from seeing the demand for an ID and password. Today, the Cupertino, Calif. company re-released iOS 9.3.

In the meantime, however, users whose devices had already downloaded iOS 9.3, but whom had not authorized the upgrade, began seeing a message when they got around to updating. "Unable to Verify Update," the on-screen message read. "iOS 9.3 failed verification because you are no longer connected to the Internet."

But those devices -- including an iPhone 6 owned by a Computerworld staffer -- were connected to the Internet.
A thread on Apple's support forum spelled out the problem, and the likely cause.
"I suspect this is really Apple's way of blocking you from installing the update you have already downloaded, until they fix the known activation issue with the update," wrote someone identified as "AndreTheGeek" on March 25. "Wait for the update to the update."

More good reads

Apple probably dropped or changed the digital "signature" of the update on its end, creating a mismatch that resulted in the "Unable to Verify Update" message.
Although the thread contained fewer than 30 message, it had been viewed more than 10,000 times, a very large number for such a small collection of reports. In other words, lots of users had seen the same no-Internet error, searched the Web using a string such as "ios 9.3 verification failure," as did Computerworld, and were directed to Apple's support forum.
Computerworld's device successfully downloaded and installed the revised iOS 9.3 today.

This story, "Apple re-issues iOS 9.3 after crippling older devices, confusing customers" was originally published by Computerworld.

Microsoft is putting Windows 10, Cortana at the center of smart homes

A display for the newly formed Open Connectivity Foundation at Mobile World Congress 2016 shows a model smart home, in a file image captured on Feb. 25, 2016. Credit: Stephen Lawson

Windows 10 will be able to support more IoT devices with new standards coming in 2017

Are you too lazy to open the door or switch on a light? Let Windows 10 and its Cortana voice-activated digital assistant do the job for you.
Microsoft's vision is to make home automation a breeze in Windows 10, and the company featured several related Internet-of-things announcements at its ongoing Build conference.

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Windows 10 will work with a wider range of devices and appliances by integrating new Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) protocols, scheduled to be released in 2017. Additionally, Cortana will allow users to easily automate tasks using a Windows PC, mobile device, Xbox console or Raspberry Pi 3.
Users will be able to program "actions" so Cortana can be used to switch on lights, air conditioning or even unlock cars. For example, users will be able to speak, "lights" to their smartphones, and the bulbs will turn on.

Or even better, users can tell Cortana to "unlock home door," which will open the door and trigger a series of additional actions like switching on the lights and the air conditioning. A command like "party" could switch on the music and the disco lights.

Actions can also be based on the time of day or on information from connected sensors. The actions can be attached to specific profiles in Cortana like "activate smart home." The connected devices will need to be discovered by Windows 10 and be on a list of approved devices, much like how the OS discovers and lists wireless printers and other hardware.
But Windows doesn't support all devices right now, and the OS works with only those based on the AllJoyn protocol. Support for a wider range of devices will come with the integration of protocols established by the OCF, which will unite the disparate IoT standards under one umbrella.

Watch Now

OCF unites AllJoyn, which boasts Microsoft and Qualcomm as members, with the competing Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), with key members including Intel, Samsung and Dell. The companies are working together to converge device discovery, security and connectivity tools under the OCF banner.

More good reads

End users will benefit from this union. For example, they will be able to use Windows 10 and Cortana to switch on a Samsung Smart TV, which is currently compatible with OIC protocols.
OCF will provide the common language for most of the smart devices to interact, Jason Farmer, principal program manager lead for Windows IoT at Microsoft, said during a presentation at Build.

Resources

"Fragmentation is the enemy of IoT," Farmer said.
Support for OCF tools and standards will be integrated into Windows 10 by 2017, Farmer said.
The OCF standard, like existing standards, will support several types of connectivity, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee.

Until the integration is complete, Microsoft released an "open-source" bridge to connect OIC tools, called IoTivity, with the AllJoyn APIs. It will help AllJoyn devices talk to OIC-compatible IoT devices.

Microsoft also announced a new open-source project called Open Translator for Things, which will help define schemas to create a common classifier of devices. The common classification will make it easy to identify devices, and will be a big tool in the process of converging AllJoyn and IoTivity into OCF. The translator will be available Tuesday through Github.