Latest Tech News

Some Microsoft Edge Canary users will finally have access to a feature announced back in January during CES 2023.

According to Neowin, that feature is called Video Super Resolution (VSR) and it’s an upscaler that uses AI tech from Microsoft Research to enhance video quality within the browser. Starting today, 50% of Microsoft Edge Canary users will have the chance to test out VSR. The feature works by removing block compression artifacts and upscaling the overall resolution onto various streaming platforms.

This should be an incredibly useful feature since, according to Microsoft’s own data, “one out of three videos in Edge is played at 480p or lower.” It’ll help out users with low network bandwidth or bad video quality.

However, it does come with caveats. For instance, VSR requires a discrete graphics card from either Nvidia (RTX 20-series and newer) or AMD (RX 5700 and newer). Microsoft stated it would drop an update to allow for automatic switching between iGPU and dGPU in the near future. You also can’t use the feature on DRM-protected videos or when your laptop is unplugged.

AI upscaling might be the future

It seems AI upscaling may be the future of general video upscaling, as it’s very similar to one that Nvidia has been pushing as well. That one is called RTX Video Super Resolution that, according to a statement given to PC Gamer, would allow for “resolutions beyond 1080p. It'll upscale video with a native resolution anywhere between 360p and 1440p, and it'll work with video up to 144Hz frame rate.”

And it works for both Chrome and Edge browsers, which means that Chrome users aren’t left in the cold. However, this feature would require an RTX 3000-series or 4000-series GPU, but in return, you can have videos upscaled to 4K resolution.

It’ll be interesting to see if any other browsers like Safari, Opera, or Mozilla will adopt their own upscaling tech, as well as AMD developing independent tech to compete with Nvidia’s.

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Latest Gadgets News

Snapchat is kicking dozens of children in Britain off its platform each month compared with tens of thousands blocked by rival TikTok, according to internal data the companies shared with Britain's media regulator Ofcom and which Reuters has seen. Social media platforms such as Meta's Instagram, ByteDance's TikTok, and Snap's Snapchat require users to be at least 13 y...

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Latest Tech News

Dell has warned that 2023 could be another incredibly challenging year after a tough end to 2022 for the company.

Despite announcing a record revenue in fiscal year 2023, which ended for the company last month, Dell's revenue in the final quarter was down 11%, indicating the tough months that are yet to come.

Much of the company’s success, though, can be attributed to its Infrastructure Solutions Group which is responsible for cloud operations, with its PC sales suffering quietly.

Global PC sales

According to research firm Canalys, in the calendar year 2022, Dell shipped just shy of 50,000 desktops and notebooks, compared with almost 60,000 in 2021, representing a 16.1% decline (a figure representative of the industry average of 16.4%).

Despite the challenging year, Dell maintains its position as the third most popular computer company after Lenovo and HP (both of which suffered greater reductions in shipments), successfully accounting for precisely 17.4% of the market both years running.

Dell’s co-chief operating officer, Chuck Whitten, alluded that this may not continue to be the case for the company, though, noting theat although, "Underlying demand in PCs and servers remains weak, (we) are seeing signs of changing customer behavior in storage."

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Dell shipped 37.2% fewer PCs in the final quarter of 2022 (note, this is different to the company’s fiscal final quarter), making it the worst-performing among the top five companies. 

As the world cuts back on PC spend, Dell prepares itself to shift attention to other operations. Whitten, who is “pleased with [Dell’s] momentum in storage”, said:

“We expect to gain over a point of share in mainstream server and storage revenue when the IDC calendar results come out later this month.”

How exactly the year ahead will pan out for the PC market is anybody’s guess, with several opposing predictions emerging over recent months, however our growing need for an increasingly cloud-based storage continues to deliver profits for traditional computing companies who are willing to explore other avenues. 

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A new phishing campaign hs been discovered targeting cryptocurrency hardware wallet firm Trezor.

These wallets allow crypto users to store their funds offline, rather than in a “hot wallet” (a mobile or desktop app), or with a third party (an exchange, a custodial service, or a lending/borrowing firm). Hardware wallets, also known as “cold wallets” are generally perceived as a much safer way to store cryptocurrencies, compared to the alternatives. 

That also means that whoever is serious about cryptocurrencies (and has a substantial amount) will probably hold it in cold storage, making Trezor users an attractive target for cybercriminals. 

"Securing" a breached wallet

In this new campaign, Trezor users started receiving SMS messages warning them of a “data breach” at the company, and urging them to “secure” their devices immediately. The SMS message also comes with a hyperlink that the victims should visit.

"Trezor Suite has recently endured a security breach, assume all your assets are vulnerable. Please follow the security procedure to secure your assets: [link]," the message reads.

Whoever visits the link will see a fake Trezor website with the message “Your assets might be at risk!” and a Start button where users can “secure” their assets. The first step in this process is to enter the recovery seed.

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The recovery seed, usually a string of either 12 or 24 words, is used to restore a wallet, in case the old device is stolen or destroyed. Whoever has the seed phrase can restore the wallet and gain full access to the funds. So, if the victim ends up entering this information in the phishing page, they’re essentially giving the attackers full access to their wallet, which they can later use to clear out any and all funds in the account.

Trezor was alerted to the new campaign and took to Twitter to warn its customers that it's being impersonated, and not to fall for the trick. The company also said that it’s not aware of any new data breaches, so the attackers have most likely obtained Trezor users emails’ in the previous MailChimp incident. 

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Via: BleepingComputer

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BetterHelp Should Pay $7.8 Million for Sharing Sensitive Data, FTC Says - CNET

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Adobe has complied a list of ten of the online collaboration tools that are best suited for new or growing businesses.

Recognizing the importance of digital workflows for modern firms, the business software giant has given its recommendations of what platforms should be using to maximize productivity.

Perhaps unsurprisngly, the list includes its own PDF editor, Adobe Acrobat, but also contains popular team messaging app Slack and cloud storage service Google Drive, among others to cover every aspect of a firm's operation. 

Digitizing business

Adobe notes that online tools have continued to surge in uptake, with searches for “best online tools for new business” increased by 170% in February 2023 alone. For this reason, it wanted to make sure businesses chose the right ones out of the vast pool of options available.

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Regarding Slack, Adobe commented that the service allows businesses to "bring the watercooler and conference room right to your computer." Other reasons for its inclusion include its instant messaging capability, ability to talk in groups or to individual coworkers, video calling and integration with other productivity tools. 

It also said that Google Drive is "hard to beat" in terms of collaborating on documents, letting you "share folders, documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with your entire team and collaborate in real time." It also praised its free availability to those with a Google account. Another popular storage service, Dropbox, also made the cut. 

Project management software Asana is also on the list, due to its ability to "keep your entire team on track. You can create tasks, assign them to co-workers (or yourself), leave comments, and set project statuses. It’s everything teams of any size need to manage projects on the go."

Rounding out the remaining entries are the free note-taking web app Notion, the spreadsheet-database hybrid service Airtable, CRM platform HubSpot, accounting software QuickBooks and Google Analytics for tracking your web traffic. 

"With the right tech stack, individuals and businesses can keep their documents organized and streamline their overall processes, reducing costs and saving time and energy, leading to improved efficiency and profitability," noted Lisa Croft, Director of Product Marketing at Adobe.

"Instead of spending time and resources on paper storage and filing, business owners can use online tools to store, manage, and access their documents quickly and easily." 

"These tools allow you to access and share critical documents quickly and easily, and they can also streamline the process of meeting, communicating, and collaborating with colleagues and clients. The benefits of using online tools to organize your business are numerous."

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Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has given a "thumbs up" for the revised draft of the data protection law. Vaishnaw, a bureaucrat turned politician who presently handles the IT portfolio, said an advanced copy of the revised bill on data protection was shared with the com...

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Bot malware, where incidents automated malicious code capable of exfiltrating entire user profiles from target endpoints, are on the rise, a new report from NordVPN has warned.

The company's research claims that the data of five million people has been stolen by bot malware since 2018, covering 26.6 million usernames and passwords, including almost a million Google credentials, and more than a million Microsoft and Facebook logins combined. 

Bot malware is more dangerous than your average malware, because by stealing entire user profiles, they enable the operators to bypass multi-factor authentication protection. 

Bypassing MFA

“When a criminal hacks a password, they cannot complete the identity authentication if the user has MFA enabled. However, if a criminal obtains their victim’s cookies and device configuration information, they can trick the security systems and avoid MFA activation. Because bot malware provides criminals with the entire digital identity of their victims — it presents a brand new set of risks,” said Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN.

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What makes these attacks even more dangerous is the fact that the barrier for entry is quite low. Even unskilled hackers can use these user profiles to log into people's accounts and use them for various nefarious purposes. 

For example, they can steal people's Facebook accounts and impersonate them to ask for money, deliver malware, or promote dangerous and fake narratives. They can even use the obtained information to target businesses with phishing emails, the researchers concluded.

What’s more, they don’t even need to deliver the bot malware to target endpoints themselves. They can simply purchase the data on the dark web. The average price for a single person’s dataset is roughly $6, it was said.

“To protect yourself, use an antivirus at all times. Other measures that could help – a password manager and file encryptions tools to make sure that even if a criminal infects your device, there is very little for them to steal,” adds Adrianus Warmenhoven.

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Best Internet Promotions of March - CNET

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As of late, Google Chrome has been getting plenty of updates and quality-of-life changes. And now it seems Google is taking a page from Microsoft Edge’s book with a new upcoming feature.

As revealed by Reddit user Leopeva64-2 and reported on by MSPowerUser, Google Chrome is set to get a new feature that lets users close a tab by double-clicking on it, which is an especially useful feature when there are too many tabs open. The reason is that when too many tabs are open, the ‘X’ button is no longer visible, meaning that you normally would have to click on the tab directly. But with the double-tap method, it makes closing excessive tabs much easier and faster.

Just like in Edge, this option will most likely have an option to toggle on and off in the browser settings. If this feature ends up being fully developed, Chrome Canary — a beta version of Chrome mainly targeted at developers, passionate tech users, and browser enthusiasts — would most likely be testing it first, followed by Chrome Stable users.

Google Chrome has been stepping it up

The quick close tab feature is one of several that Google has been introducing to its Chrome browser. Lately, the tech giant has been focused on making sweeping changes that target Apple iOS. For instance, it seems that Google’s Chromium engineers are testing the Blink browser engine on iOS devices instead of Apple’s WebKit engine, which is most likely preparing for a point in the future that would allow it to power Chrome with the Blink engine.

And in an upcoming update for Chrome, Google promises to improve battery usage by matching Safari’s level of energy efficiency for simple web browsing tasks. And combined with the newly introduced Energy Saver mode, it should allow for Chrome to exceed Apple’s own battery life predictions.

Finally, Google is working on a new feature that would allow those who use the best Google Chrome extensions to enable and disable extensions on a per-site basis. This is an especially useful feature since it can help users prevent security and privacy issues like e-commerce extensions tracking browsing activity or certain extensions affecting some sites’ performance.

With all these improvements coming to Chrome, it’s truly being shaped into the best web browser out there, which would ensure that the stranglehold it has on the browser market isn’t challenged.

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TikTok said on Wednesday it is developing a tool that will allow parents to prevent their teens from viewing content containing certain words or hashtags on the short-form video app, as the embattled company looks to shore up its public image. TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, is facing renewed scrutiny worldwide over its proximity to the Chinese govern...

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Save Up to 46% On Smart Devices at Amazon and Upgrade Your Home on a Budget - CNET

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A Microsoft study has emphasized the new pressure facing CFOs and their teams as they struggle to balance strategic innovation with their company’s financial goals and long-term financial health.

The report explores the effects of the pandemic which changed the role of CFOs, who went from fiscal planning to driving innovation amid global economic uncertainty, to the point that 79% of finance leaders believe they must play a significant role in business innovation to meet future needs.

Key to success is the successful deployment of technology, which Microsoft explored in a complementary blog post.

CFO job role expanding

More than eight in 10 (82%) of finance leaders recognize the importance of artificial intelligence and other automation technology to support their organization’s goals, which can help decrease human workload and free up time to focus on things that require specific skills and concentration.

Data, for example, can be an expansive environment that needs to be boiled down to presentable information in order to recognize trends, predict future performance, and refine other areas of business. Despite this, Microsoft reckons that 8%% of financial leaders feel overwhelmed by their organization’s data.

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Alongside exploring AI tools to support data management, Microsoft is keen to push its new Dynamics 365 Finance business performance analytics feature that’s designed to centralize data from more than one business workstream into an easy-to-use interface.

As we look toward the future, Microsoft wants to take even more of the workload off finance teams, seeking to replace it with low-code solutions that has saved it 977 annual hours of manual labor and $25 million.

Of course, you don’t have to limit yourself to Microsoft’s offerings, and there are plenty of other options out there including the best accounting software for small businesses.

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