Blair Hanley Frank
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Maersk hopes drones can deliver sweet savings
Shipping giant Maersk Group made headlines earlier this year when it used a drone to deliver a bucket of cookies to a tanker at sea. That was just the beginning of an effort the company thinks could dramatically change its business.The company is evaluating ways to expand its use of drones and plans a bigger test later this year, said Markus Kuhn, a supply chain manager at Maersk, at the Drones Data X conference in San Francisco.In January, the company made a drone fly 250 meters from one of its barges to a tanker and drop off a batch of cookies. It's now looking for a drone-making partner for a test flight that would haul a 10-kilogram package for 10 kilometers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google will help people find lost iPhones
Google is giving iPhone users another way to find their misplaced devices -- by searching the Web for it. Soon, when iPhone or Android users enter "I lost my phone" at Google.com, the search engine will respond with options that will allow them to ring the device, or locate it on a map. Right now, users can already get access to that functionality through Google's My Account feature, which serves as the nexus for people to understand and access the information connected to their Google account.Unlike Apple's Find my iPhone, Google's phone location feature isn't capable of locking an iPhone or remotely erasing it. Still, it may be a useful feature for someone who have misplaced his phone and just wants to figure out where it is.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Office 365 Advanced Security Management brings powerful protection for a price
Enterprises using Microsoft's Office 365 have a new security product that they can use to better lock down their organizations -- for a price. The company introduced a new Advanced Security Management service on Wednesday that gives companies a trio of tools aimed at helping detect security threats, provide granular controls and let IT administrators track if people in their organization are using unauthorized services.It's another part of Microsoft's push to lure businesses over to its subscription-based productivity suite. By providing more advanced security capabilities, Microsoft may be able to convince security-conscious businesses to buy into Office 365, rather than avoid a subscription or choose one of Office's competitors like Google Apps for Work.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Office 365 Advanced Security Management brings powerful protection for a price
Enterprises using Microsoft's Office 365 have a new security product that they can use to better lock down their organizations -- for a price. The company introduced a new Advanced Security Management service on Wednesday that gives companies a trio of tools aimed at helping detect security threats, provide granular controls and let IT administrators track if people in their organization are using unauthorized services.It's another part of Microsoft's push to lure businesses over to its subscription-based productivity suite. By providing more advanced security capabilities, Microsoft may be able to convince security-conscious businesses to buy into Office 365, rather than avoid a subscription or choose one of Office's competitors like Google Apps for Work.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft’s investing arm is back on the market, but will entrepreneurs bite?
After laying dormant for quite some time, Microsoft has announced that it is getting back into directly investing in startups. Microsoft Ventures has been overhauled, though it’s not clear why Microsoft has decided to get back into investing — or if the company is in it for the long haul.Nagraj Kashyap, the corporate vice president of Microsoft Ventures, laid out his vision for the investing arm in a blog post Monday, saying that the fund will be used to support early-stage companies and help Microsoft be more involved in new technology developments.Microsoft’s existing series of startup accelerators, and its BizSpark program to offer discounts on software, will be rolled into a new Microsoft Accelerator organization. For larger business partnerships and acquisitions, Microsoft will rely on a different team. This version of Ventures is supposed to fill in a gap Microsoft left open when it stopped directly investing in companies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Salesforce picks AWS as preferred public cloud provider
Salesforce has named Amazon Web Services its preferred public cloud provider for services like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and App Cloud, expanding an existing partnership to provide the backend for the software-as-a-service provider.AWS already hosts several Salesforce services like Heroku, SalesforceIQ and the recently-announced IoT Cloud. This latest deal will help Salesforce to expand internationally without having to build its own data centers in order to comply with local data sovereignty laws. That's important as Salesforce tries to pick up more customers in countries that have strict requirements about where data is stored. Salesforce isn't the only company to turn to AWS in this capacity: Dropbox will store data with AWS in Germany starting later this year. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Business users get live chat in Office Online
Microsoft's attempts to catch up with Google in the online collaboration space took a step forward Wednesday, when the company announced that it's giving business users live chat in Office Online. The new feature will allow users to discuss documents stored in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business using chat sessions powered by Skype for Business.When more than one person is working on a shared document inside Word, Excel, OneNote or PowerPoint Online, they'll see a chat button show up in the Web app's toolbar. When clicked, it'll open a chat sidebar so everyone with the document open can discuss it. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Apple hires mobile encryption pioneer amid encryption debate
Apple has rehired a mobile encryption pioneer as it continues to face pressure from governments wanting access to user data stored on iPhones. Jon Callas most recently worked as a co-founder of Silent Circle, which produced the security-minded Blackphone and has joined the iPhone and iPad maker in an undisclosed capacity, Apple revealed to Reuters. Callas is a veteran of the security industry who also co-founded PGP Corporation.He first worked at Apple from 1995-1997, then again from 2009-2011. He has two patents to his name from that second stint that are both focused on full-disk encryption, something that Apple uses in its smartphones, tablets and computers. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Apple hires mobile encryption pioneer amid encryption debate
Apple has rehired a mobile encryption pioneer as it continues to face pressure from governments wanting access to user data stored on iPhones. Jon Callas most recently worked as a co-founder of Silent Circle, which produced the security-minded Blackphone and has joined the iPhone and iPad maker in an undisclosed capacity, Apple revealed to Reuters. Callas is a veteran of the security industry who also co-founded PGP Corporation.He first worked at Apple from 1995-1997, then again from 2009-2011. He has two patents to his name from that second stint that are both focused on full-disk encryption, something that Apple uses in its smartphones, tablets and computers. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google’s modular smartphone project sacrificed its original vision to move forward
Google's Project Ara modular smartphone is coming to developers soon, but it's lost a key part of its customization vision along the way. Developers will be able to get their hands on an early release version of Ara by the end of this year, to begin building custom hardware modules for the device, Google announced at its I/O conference Friday. The modules will allow users to customize their phones with hardware like cameras, speakers, and even a rear-facing display. Ara's initial philosophy was to serve as a wholly modular smartphone, which would allow users to customize all of the phone's components, including its processor, battery, network connectivity, and screen. Now, many of those components will be integrated into the Ara "frame," which will still retain space for some customization. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Here’s a look inside Google I/O’s playground for developers
Here's a look inside Google I/O's playground for developersImage by Blair Hanley FrankGoogle held its massive I/O conference this week at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. It turned the concert venue into a giant playground for developers, with whacky exhibits and a chance to check out Google's latest products. Here's a look inside, starting with this massive I/O sign which greeted people as thery arrived.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google is bringing Android apps to Chromebooks
Google's Play Store for Android will be coming to Chrome OS, the lightweight operating system that powers Chromebook laptops, the company announced Thursday.That means Chromebook users will be able to download and install apps made for Android onto their Chromebooks, expanding the base of applications available for those devices. Prevously, Chromebooks were able to run only applications built for Chrome.It's an important enhancement for Chrome OS, which Google has been touting as the perfect operating system for schools and businesses, but which is lacking applications compared to Android. By bringing the two together, Google will expand the utility of both Android apps and Chromebooks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google has a new chip that makes machine learning way faster
Google has taken a big leap forward with the speed of its machine learning systems by creating its own custom chip that it's been using for over a year.The company was rumored to have been designing its own chip, based partly on job ads it posted in recent years. But until today it had kept the effort largely under wraps.It calls the chip a Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU, named after the TensorFlow software it uses for its machine learning programs. In a blog post, Google engineer Norm Jouppi refers to it as an accelerator chip, which means it speeds up a specific task.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google has a new chip that makes machine learning way faster
Google has taken a big leap forward with the speed of its machine learning systems by creating its own custom chip that it's been using for over a year. The company was rumored to have been designing its own chip, based partly on job ads it posted in recent years. But until today it had kept the effort largely under wraps. It calls the chip a Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU, named after the TensorFlow software it uses for its machine learning programs. In a blog post, Google engineer Norm Jouppi refers to it as an accelerator chip, which means it speeds up a specific task.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google’s new tools make it easier to integrate apps with its spreadsheets and slides
Google is updating the developer tools for its Docs productivity suite in an effort to make it easier for companies to integrate third-party applications with its presentation, spreadsheet and word processing software. Software makers can start working with a new tool that lets them sync data between a Google Sheet and their application for easy data compilation and sharing among people who use the online spreadsheet software. In addition, Google also announced a new Slides API that will allow users to automatically populate slide decks with information from outside sources. Software packages like Google Docs don't exist in a vacuum, and offering developers a way to more deeply integrate with the company's products could lead to more companies becoming interested in picking up the productivity suite because of how it works with other software. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google’s new tools make it easier to integrate apps with its spreadsheets and slides
Google is updating the developer tools for its Docs productivity suite in an effort to make it easier for companies to integrate third-party applications with its presentation, spreadsheet and word processing software. Software makers can start working with a new tool that lets them sync data between a Google Sheet and their application for easy data compilation and sharing among people who use the online spreadsheet software. In addition, Google also announced a new Slides API that will allow users to automatically populate slide decks with information from outside sources. Software packages like Google Docs don't exist in a vacuum, and offering developers a way to more deeply integrate with the company's products could lead to more companies becoming interested in picking up the productivity suite because of how it works with other software. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Quip is taking another swing at Excel with better spreadsheet features
Quip, a Silicon Valley startup that's taking on the giants of the productivity software market, announced a major update to its spreadsheet capabilities Wednesday that's aimed at bringing its service more in line with Microsoft Excel. The service's spreadsheets now include features like the ability to merge cells, validate data and filter information in a sheet. With this update, users can also insert spreadsheets into documents so data and commentary can reside in the same place. It's all tied together with Quip's signature chat feature, which lets users discuss what's going on inside a spreadsheet while they're working on it together. These updates are key to helping Quip compete with its biggest rivals in the cloud productivity suite space: Microsoft's Office 365 and Google Apps for Work. Those two services have their own spreadsheet applications, and this update makes Quip's upstart offering more appealing to people who have richer spreadsheet needs. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft and SAP deepen partnership with Azure and Office integrations
SAP and Microsoft have expanded an existing partnership to offer new products to users of the Azure and Office 365 cloud services, focused on better integrating the two companies' offerings. Azure customers will be able to use SAP HANA in Microsoft's public cloud, expanding the reach of that popular relational database service. SAP is also integrating its services including Fieldglass, Concur and SuccessFactors with Microsoft Office 365, so users can get the benefits of Microsoft's communications, collaboration, calendar and document editing tools.This all fits into Microsoft's ongoing strategy of partnering broadly with a variety of companies, including those that compete against it in some businesses. Teaming up with SAP can make Azure and Office 365 more appealing to companies that are already tied into SAP's ecosystem, and drive adoption of each company's products.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Five questions for Google to answer at its big I/O conference
Google’s I/O developer conference starts Wednesday and some big announcements are expected during the opening two-hour keynote, likely around virtual reality, Android and the Internet of Things.In a change of pace, the show is being held outdoors at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, and Google has advised the press to pack sunscreen along with laptops and mobile devices. Here are five questions I want company executives to answer during the course of this year's keynote. What’s the company’s plan for the Internet of Things? Google has made some big bets on the Internet of Things, with its Brillo and Weave developer tools, along with its acquisition of Nest in 2014. Then, there’s the OnHub wireless router Google announced last year. It’s clear that the company is interested in playing a major role as part of the growing world of internet-connected devices, but it’s been a while since we’ve heard anything major from the company in the IoT realm.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Slack has hired away a new engineering chief from Pinterest
Slack, the fast-growing workplace collaboration startup, has snagged a new engineering chief from Pinterest.Michael Lopp left the social bookmarking site earlier this month to become Slack's vice president of engineering, according to his LinkedIn profile.Lopp is a Silicon Valley veteran with experience at companies including Apple and Netscape. Prior to Pinterest, he was a director at Palantir Technologies, a Palo Alto firm focused on using big data analysis for business and government applications."We’d like to thank Lopp for his contributions to Pinterest and wish him well. We’re fortunate to have strong technical leaders throughout the engineering team as we look ahead to growing the company and the product," Pinterest said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here