One area where Microsoft Teams is excelling is in support for backgrounds. Of course, most video calling services allow users to change backgrounds, including Zoom and Microsoft’s own Skype. However, during 2020 Microsoft has made Teams arguably the most robust in this aspect. Microsoft has recently updated Teams to make it even easier to place a custom background on a video feed. Thanks to the new simplified method, new custom backgrounds can be added in seconds....

Market research firm IDC says tablet shipments have fallen 8.8% year-on-year (YoY) and stood at 38.6 million during the third quarter of 2022. As for Chromebooks running Google’s Chrome OS declined 34.4% with just 4.3 million units. Before continuing, it is interesting the Chromebook remains such a niche product market. Hardly the major disruptor to Windows PCs Google would lead us to believe. Either way, IDC says the decrease in shipments of tablets and Chromebooks comes from less education and consumer demand caused by “economic uncertainties”....

1 Full Changelog2 Beta Channel Debut Chromium Edge users will now see an improvement in the Collections feature. This is a tool Microsoft introduced last month. Collections helps users organize and share website information to help keep track of data. Microsoft says many users find the internet and overwhelming place and are often cluttered. With this vast information, Collections helps to organize into actionable tools. Microsoft says the feature leverages “Cloud featured intelligence and an intuitive interface to help you collect, organize and share content” as you browse content on the web....

The GIF functionality is available in reply to any post, letting users express themselves quickly and visually. It’s a feature available on other social media, so it makes sense to see it here. Announcments and Praise However, that lighthearted addition will be balanced by some professional ones. Post announcements let admins post about upcoming events and news, pinging everyone in the group. Announcements go straight to the member’s inbox, meaning they can read back through at any time....

In 2017, hackers stole data from one of the leading top credit reporting companies in the United States, Equifax. The breach led to the financial and personal information of up to 143 million citizens becoming accessible to threat actors. That was close to half of the U.S. population. Included in the data were names, Social Security numbers, birthdates, addresses, credit ratings, and credit card info. It was a treasure trove for identity thieves and scammers....

The European Parliament, European Council, and other groups within the nation bloc have created official legislation that mandates all smartphones and tablets sold in the EU to have USB-C. This regulation will come into effect by 2024. For Android manufacturers like Samsung, Google, and OnePlus, this change means nothing. Those OEMs have been building USB-C support into their devices for years. However, Apple has resisted and is now having its hand pushed by EU lawmakers....

According to Bloomberg, Facebook will target the Indian remittance market to roll out cryptocurrency, which is described as a stablecoin. If you are unfamiliar with this term, it is a type of cryptocoin that has a pegged value tied to a real-world asset, such as a currency like the Euro. Sources familiar with the project say WhatsApp is unlikely to receive the stablecoin just yet. Facebook is still developing the currency that it will be tied to....

With Security Lab, GitHub has combined security experts from various organizations to find and eliminate bugs. “GitHub Security Lab’s mission is to inspire and enable the global security research community to secure the world’s code,” the company added in an accompanying press release. “Our team will lead by example, dedicating full-time resources to finding and reporting vulnerabilities in critical open source projects.” Among the companies joining Security Lab at launch include Microsoft, Intel, Google, Oracle, Mozilla, LinkedIn, VMWare, Uber, NCC Group, J....

GitHub Skills is the first built-in solution for helping users to learn how to properly use the platform. Sure, Learning Lab has been available for some time, but it was a secondary service to GitHub. As GitHub is an evolving platform, there is always new information to take in, making learning services a necessity. With the launch of GitHub Skills, the platform now has a place where beginners and pros can build and grow their skillset....

Google Meet is baked into the company’s G Suite service and is focused on education and enterprise users. During the pandemic, Meet’s userbase has increased to over 100 million (a 30x growth). Google wants to go to the next stage and reach more people. With the free version, Google says it will be rolled out to users in stages to ensure stability. “It’s important that everyone who uses Meet has a secure and reliable experience from the start, so beginning next week, we’ll be gradually expanding its availability to more and more people over the following weeks....

CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) does what it says on the tin. It is a website integration that relies on the ability of humans to solve puzzles machines cannot. The core purpose of CAPTCHA is for humans to pass a test to tell the website or service they are human. It’s a security measure that has proved effective, even if users tend to be annoyed by it....

If you are unfamiliar with the term embedded browser, they are common amongst developers. Applications use embedded browsers that allow you to sign-in to a service directly within the app. For example, a Gmail log-in to sign-up for a service. The problem is these embedded browsers are a soft target for cybercriminals, especially for building phishing attacks. Hackers can easily exploit Google’s Chromium Embedded Framework by hijacking the communication link between the user and Google....

“HoloLens (1st gen) is entering Long Term Servicing (LTS) state. Future updates will focus on issue and security fixes, while maintaining feature parity with the Windows 10 October 2018 release for HoloLens (also known as RS5),” reads the documentation. For users of the device, this means no new features, with the device quickly becoming outdated compared to the rest of the OS. Still, while this sounds like Microsoft axing yet another service, that’s not really accurate....

1 How to AutoFit Column Width in Excel via Cell Labels2 How to AutoFit Row Height in Excel3 How to AutoFit Columns and Rows in Excel via the Ribbon4 How to Use the Excel Autofit Shortcut5 Extra: How to Move or Swap Columns in Excel6 Extra: How to Color Alternating Rows in Excel What is Excel autofit? Excel autofit automatically adjusts the size of your cells to match the longest content in the column or row....

1 Google Chrome: Delete Specific Cookies, Cache, and Site Data2 Microsoft Edge: Clear Cache, Site Data, and Cookies for a Specific Site3 How to Clear Cache, Cookies, and Site Data for a Site in Firefox However, in most cases, it’s not necessary to clear the entire cache. If you’re having an issue with a single site, it makes more sense to delete specific cookies and cache elements that could be causing the issue....

1 How to Draw in Word with the Shapes Tool2 How to Draw on a Word Document with the Microsoft Word Drawing Tool3 Extra: How to Draw on Google Docs4 Extra: How to Annotate Screenshots with Snip and Sketch Drawings can add some extra flavor to your documents while remaining suitable for certain audiences. We’re going to show you how to draw on Word documents using two tools: the freehand tool and the shapes tool....

Virtual data rooms are continuously making data storage and management a lot easier for business organizations around the globe. The cloud-based online data repository not only allows highly secure data storage and due diligence processes, but it is equally handy in terms of business insights. What is a virtual data room? For those who don’t have much awareness about a virtual data room, it is an online space where you can store, share, and manage data in a totally safe and secure environment....

When working from home, certain elements take more gravity than usual – one of which is an internet or power outage. Regardless of whether it is a result of severe climate change, any personal error, system upgrade, or downright misfortune, it is highly inopportune and can easily put a dent in your wallet. While both internet and power outages can happen at the same time, being prepared is the key....

Microsoft points out Azure OpenAI Service is launching as an invite only platform for the time being. It is available as an Azure Cognitive Service, adding, OpenAI GPT-3 security, compliance, reliability, models, and other enterprise abilities. Of course, Microsoft already has a close relationship with OpenAI. In May, the company launched a Power Fx ability for translating natural language queries into code. This was the first time Microsoft has used GPT-3 following entering an exclusive license of the API with OpenAI....

It’s not hard to advertise on the social media giant’s platform; in fact, Facebook has made it incredibly easy to advertise a product or service and provides a tiered system, that depending on how much you’re willing to spend, will determine how many potential customers you can reach. However, the month of October has proven to be a rather trying time for the company whose internal motto used to be: “Move fast and break things....