Meet Stellarfi The App That Builds Your Credit While Paying Your Bills

StellarFi offers three different membership tiers for users: a $4.99 monthly membership, a $9.99 membership, and a $19.99 membership. The mid tier lets consumers add an unlimited amount of bills for StellarFi to pay on their behalf. There are no other fees for user’s to worry about, the company said. There is no credit check required to make an account, just a valid bank account and a Social Security number to verify your identity....

March 13, 2023 · 3 min · 616 words · John Cox

Meta Reiterates Politician Claims Will Not Be Fact Checked For Australian Federal Election

“The speech of politicians are already very highly scrutinised,” Meta Australia policy head Josh Machin told reporters at a press briefing “It’s scrutinised by [journalists], but also by academics, experts, and their political opponents who are pretty well-positioned to push back or indicate they don’t believe something’s right if they think they’re being mischaracterised.” Misinformation that is political in nature and comes from people who are not politicians will be eligible to be fact-checked, however....

March 13, 2023 · 4 min · 659 words · Miguel Howell

Meta Shares How It Detects Silent Data Corruptions In Its Data Centres

SDCs are data errors that do not leave any record or trace in system logs. Sources of SDCs include datapath dependencies, temperature variance, and age, among other silicon factors. Since these data errors are silent, they can stay undetected within workloads and propagate across several services. The data error can affect memory, storage, networking, as well as computer CPUs and cause data loss and corruption. Meta engineers started testing three years ago as they had a difficult time detecting SDCs once components had already gone into one of its production data centre fleets....

March 13, 2023 · 3 min · 505 words · Bryan Allendorf

Metaverse Minus The Headset A Deeper Look At Lenovo S Project Chronos

Also: Apple’s VR/AR headset is coming. Here’s everything we know so far Details on Project Chronos, which is still very much a work in progress, were limited, so ZDNET caught up with Sanjeev Menon, vice president and general manager of the Desktop Business Segment at Lenovo, via email after the show to find out more. Why do you think similar motion-control technologies have failed to gain widespread traction? Natural motion-capture technologies are either marker-based using body-tracking sensors or markerless-based using cameras....

March 13, 2023 · 7 min · 1286 words · James Sayre

Microsoft Adds Bing Ai Chat To Swiftkey Keyboard For Android

Also: How to use the new Bing (and how it’s different from ChatGPT) Confirming the beta release in a tweet posted on Wednesday, Pedram Rezaei, Microsoft Chief Technology Officer for the Mobile and Commerce Division, asked: “Did we just add major AI functionality to @SwiftKey?” and then followed up by saying: “Slowly rolling out. Get yourself onto the Beta channel to taste the future.” By selecting the new SwiftKey beta as the keyboard on your Android device, you can search for information via Bing, ask the AI to rewrite certain text, and chat with it to generate specific content....

March 13, 2023 · 2 min · 414 words · Joseph Childs

Microsoft Adds More Teams Viva Features For Frontline Workers

In January 2021, Microsoft took the wraps off the Microsoft Cloud for Retail; the second announced Microsoft industry cloud bundle. Cloud for Retail is meant to provide an “end-to-end shopper journey.” Like the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, it combines services and features from Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform and adds Microsoft Advertising specifically for retail customers. Like the healthcare cloud offering, Cloud for Retail is meant to bring together disparate data sources via a common data model....

March 13, 2023 · 1 min · 79 words · Edna Purcell

Microsoft Customer Data Leaked Says Numbers Exaggerated

“Threat actors who may have accessed the bucket may use this information in different forms for extortion, blackmailing, creating social engineering tactics with the help of exposed information, or simply selling the information to the highest bidder on the dark web and Telegram channels,” SOCRadar stated. Microsoft has acknowledged the breach, stating the data leak came from a misconfigured endpoint that is no longer in use. It added that SOCRadar has “greatly exaggerated the scope of this issue,” as the dataset contains duplicate information....

March 13, 2023 · 3 min · 565 words · Mervin Hochstetler

Microsoft Is Enabling Kubernetes For Windows Edge Computing Devices Via Project Haven

Microsoft has several other Kubernetes-themed sessions slated for Build, including a how-to for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes and another session about “seamless and secure Kubernetes experience and observability” thanks to “distroless” .NET containers, the Azure Kubernetes Service and ARC-enabled Kubernetes. Azure Arc is Microsoft’s solution for customers who want to run and manage their services, including Kubernetes, across Microsoft and non-Microsoft clouds and on-premises servers. Microsoft shared publicly hundreds of the planned Build 2022 sessions this week....

March 13, 2023 · 2 min · 291 words · Herman Price

Microsoft Makes Start Menu Customizations Possible In New Windows 11 Test Build

Windows will now remember if users turn on Bluetooth or Wi-Fi when in airplane mode so that next time users select airplane mode, their preferences will be carried over. Windows Sandbox now supports reboots inside virtualized environments. Three high-priority notifications will now be shown as stacked and shown at the same time for apps that send notifications for calls, reminders or alarms using Windows notifications. This capability is also being rolled out staggered, so all testers won’t see it immediately....

March 13, 2023 · 1 min · 148 words · Arlena Mundy

Microsoft Rolls Back A Default Macro Block In Office

Microsoft has decided to wind back a new-ish security restriction in Office that was heralded a “game changer” for the cybersecurity industry because it would block a favorite – and effective – technique used by crooks to distribute phishing and malware threats in email. Since April, Microsoft has blocked by default VBA macros obtained from the internet in Office apps on devices running Windows. The in-scope apps included Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Word....

March 13, 2023 · 5 min · 883 words · Richard Osterman

Microsoft S Latest Windows 11 Update Improves Defender For Endpoint S Ransomware Capabilities

Microsoft’s latest Windows 11 Beta Channel builds have included two releases: a higher build number with features rolling out, and a lower build number with features off by default. In this case, build 22622.450 and 22621.450 don’t appear to be very different as both builds received fixes and other improvements. “We enhanced Microsoft Defender for Endpoint’s ability to identify and intercept ransomware and advanced attacks,” Microsoft’s Insider Program managers explained....

March 13, 2023 · 2 min · 282 words · Martha Daniel

Microsoft S October Patch Tuesday Fixes 71 Vulnerabilities

One of the zero-day bugs is being actively exploited. Cybersecurity company Kaspersky has traced the malware to several espionage campaigns against IT businesses, military contractors, and diplomatic entities. Microsoft released the patches on Tuesday, October 12, as part of the company’s “Patch Tuesday.” This is a monthly occurrence where the company releases a series of security patches for its various services, and it typically happens on the second Tuesday of the month....

March 13, 2023 · 3 min · 434 words · Alberta Phillips

Microsoft Seeks Testers For Its Family Insider Program

March 13, 2023 · 0 min · 0 words · Luke Longshore

Microsoft Study Finds 50 Percent Of Leaders Have Plans For A Full Return To The Office

In spite of these desires for more flexibility by employees, 50% of leaders say they have plans for a full in-person return to the office this year. Employees who were surveyed said they want a reason why they should come into the office, yet only 28% of companies have established team agreements about who should work from where. And 53% of those surveyed say they are more likely to prioritize their health and wellbeing over work....

March 13, 2023 · 3 min · 610 words · Raul Johnson

Microsoft Support Agent And Some Basic Customer Details Hit By Solarwinds Attackers

In an update on Friday, Microsoft said it found “information-stealing malware” on the machine of one of its support agents that had access to “basic account information for a small number of our customers”. “The actor used this information in some cases to launch highly-targeted attacks as part of their broader campaign. We responded quickly, removed the access and secured the device,” the company said. “The investigation is ongoing, but we can confirm that our support agents are configured with the minimal set of permissions required as part of our Zero Trust ’least privileged access’ approach to customer information....

March 13, 2023 · 3 min · 579 words · Calvin Kohn

Microsoft Surface Pro 8 Deal 460 Off For Prime Day 2

With an Intel i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and a 256 GB SSD, this computer can complete any task in incredible time. Did I mention that this Surface Pro 8 has Windows 11 as well? With a battery life exceeding 15 hours of usage, you can use this Microsoft Surface Pro 8 all day. But, when the battery level gets low, the Fast Charging ports get you back to maximum battery life in a jiffy....

March 13, 2023 · 1 min · 84 words · Michele Riedel

Monoprice Sync Anc Bluetooth Headphones Great Sound Not So Great Anc

So, it might seem a bit too good to be true when Monoprice comes along with Bluetooth headphones that claim to provide ANC for just $60. While that skepticism turned out to be well-founded during my testing, I still found that the Monoprice SYNC-ANC Bluetooth headphones had a lot going for them, especially with their shaky ANC disabled. I won’t bury the lede. The ANC on these headphones is just not good....

March 13, 2023 · 4 min · 727 words · Rebecca Irion

More Than 20 People Stood In Line At The Supermarket No One Wanted Self Checkout

Every time I’d fly through London’s Heathrow Airport, I’d stock up on fine British chocolate and scurrilous political magazines at an airport store. Then the hell would begin. I’d have to go through self-checkout as there was only one human checkout – and that, only sometimes. I was reasonably adept at scanning the items. It’s not hard to find the barcode. But then the machine would demand I scan my boarding pass....

March 13, 2023 · 3 min · 602 words · Jean Stechlinski

Moreton Bay Regional Council Goes For Satellite Connected Smart Water Sensors

The sensors are connected via low Earth orbit nanosatellites, and have been estimated to save the council around AU$20,000 each year. The council partnered with Optus Enterprise and Myriota on the deployment, with Optus parent company Singtel having a stake in Myriota. “As a council we have made great strides in implementing smart technologies, from our AI road scanning system on garbage trucks to pathway defect detection e-bikes, just to name a few,” Mayor Peter Flannery said....

March 13, 2023 · 2 min · 417 words · Angie Anderson

Motorola Edge 30 Hands On A Very Thin Mid Range Phone With A 144Hz Amoled Screen

As far as looks go, the Moto Edge 30 punches above its weight. It’s available in just one colour, which Motorola calls Meteor Grey, although it’s actually rather bluish in tone. The back is plastic rather than glass, but it still tends to pick up finger marks. The 6.5-inch screen sits in slim bezels, and the handset measures 159.38 mm tall and 74.236 mm wide. That results in a claimed screen to body ratio of 87....

March 13, 2023 · 4 min · 751 words · Larry Koehn