Most of the time when we want a rugged smartphone, we take a fragile sandwich of glass and delicate electronics and put them into a “rugged” case and hope for the best. But for those times when you want a smartphone that combines rugged durability with high performance, you need the Kyocera DuraForce Ultra 5G. What I like about this smartphone is that while a lot of manufacturers are now calling their smartphones water-resistant, Kyocera is calling the DuraForce Ultra 5G waterproof....

Under the agreement, Megaport will pay up to $15 million, comprising $7.5 million in cash consideration and up to $7.5 million worth of ordinary shares in Megaport. “Empowering our customers and partners with greater agility is a priority for Megaport. The acquisition of InnovoEdge aligns well with that priority and will help us drive greater functionality across our leading Network as a Service platform,” Megaport CEO Vincent English said. “By integrating the InnovoStudio service with our portal and software defined network, we will provide customers and partners with greater visibility and control of networking, cloud, and service resources....

As COO, Olivan will lead Meta’s integrated ads and business products, in addition to continuing to lead its infrastructure, integrity, analytics, marketing, corporate development, and growth teams. Olivan will have “a more traditional COO role” than Sandberg, Zuckerberg said, which will be focused internally and operationally. “I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, rather than having all the business and operations functions organized separately from our products,” Zuckerberg wrote....

The Justice Department touted the “historic” settlement, which resolves the department’s first case challenging algorithmic bias under the Fair Housing Act. The settlement also marks the first time that Meta will be subject to court oversight for its ad targeting and delivery system. The case began in 2019, when the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sued Facebook for allowing landlords and property owners to restrict who saw certain ads for housing based on race, religion and nationality....

Windows 11 is yet to be taken up en masse among enterprises, but Microsoft chief Satya Nadella yesterday said the company is seeing “higher monthly usage of Windows 11 applications”. Perhaps to push things along, Microsoft has also released two kits to get users and IT admins familiar with the post-Windows 10 world. The Windows 11 and Office 365 Deployment Lab Kit aims to help admins plan, test, and validate modern desktops running Windows 11 Enterprise and Microsoft 365 Enterprise apps....

Peer5 has been touting its “seamless integration” with Microsoft’s Teams, Stream and Yammer products on its site. It also has offered legacy support for IE and live and video-on-demand support for Office 365. Peer5, founded in 2012, has offices in Palo Alto, Calif. and Tel Aviv. According to its web site, the company’s staff has experience in big-data analytics, virtualization and networking. The company is active in the WebRTC space and a member of the W3C steering committee....

The Q&A says the company still will continue to be called TakeLessons, though “we might add a ‘Powered by Microsoft’ to our name.” Microsoft could use TakeLessons to bolster its academic cloud service. It also could opt to make TakeLessons part of its assets in the “gig economy” space. Microsoft is always looking for new ways to grow its Office user base by enlarging the overall market for Office. Company officials have made “first-line workers” a key target audience for Microsoft productivity applications....

While browsing Edge, you will be able to access Bing’s Image Creator simply by clicking on an icon on the sidebar. There you can type in your prompt and get your image generated within seconds, without even having to leave the page you were on. This feature could be especially useful if you are working on a PowerPoint or social media post that could benefit from an AI-generated image. Also: How to use Bing Image Creator (and why it’s better than DALL-E 2) In March, Microsoft added Bing Chat to the sidebar, meaning that when browsing on Edge you will be able to conveniently access both your AI text and image-generating needs in one place, saving you time and hassle....

As a standalone website (available on Microsoft Edge and Chrome) - MicrosoftStart.comAs a mobile app on both Android and iOSFrom the News and Interests experience on the Windows 10 taskbarFrom the Widgets experience in Windows 11From the Microsoft Edge new tab page Microsoft Start is replacing MSN News and Microsoft News. However, for some reason, Microsoft officials said they would continue to make available and use the MSN branding, despite the introduction of Start....

Microsoft has created a new umbrella managed service category called Microsoft Security Experts consisting of “human-led” services and machine learning to help customers address security, compliance, identity, privacy and productivity goals. “Security Experts combines expert-trained technology with human-led services to help organizations achieve more secure, compliant, and productive outcomes,” it said in a post explaining the new offering. New to this group is Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting, a service to help customers hunt for threats by combing over data from Microsoft Defender, Office 365, cloud applications, and identity....

Here’s how Microsoft officials explained how Viva Sales works: “As sellers are working, they can tag customers in Outlook, Teams or Office applications like Excel, and Viva Sales will automatically capture it as a customer record, layered with all relevant data about the customer. Being able to automatically capture this level of customer engagement data was not available previously. This data can easily be shared with team members while collaborating in Office and Teams without retyping or looking it up in a CRM....

Microsoft recently updated its Windows release health dashboard to declare “Windows 11 is designated for broad deployment”, signaling the go-ahead for more people to upgrade, so long as the hardware meets Microsoft’s requirements for Windows 11. The milestone comes about seven months after Windows 11’s official release on October 5, 2021 and Microsoft’s shift to annual feature releases. Microsoft announced Windows 11 in June. SEE: The best computers: Is a Windows PC, Chromebook, or Mac right for you?...

“We’ve got to get people to download Edge,” says one large brain. “Nah, we’ve got to force them into it,” says another. “It’s the only way that works. It’s the traditional way.” And so Microsoft has tried so many stinky, annoying ways to get customers over (to) the Edge. Making it harder to use other browsers in Windows, for example. It’s clear this isn’t going to stop. I’m delighted, therefore, that the latest phase of Microsoft (no-)charm Edge offensive is so wonderfully, well, offensive....

The consumer version of the Surface Go 3 starts at $399.99, while the ‘for Business’ model, with extra security and management features, and optional LTE mobile broadband, costs from $499.99. The new Surface Slim Pen ($129.99) will work with the Surface Go 3 (as will any Surface Pen), but the keyboard hasn’t been updated with the charging well. If you have the keyboard from an older Surface Go model, it’s exactly the same Type Cover ($84....

That is what Muglia, former Microsoft executive and former Snowflake CEO, did Wednesday morning during his keynote address at The Knowledge Graph Conference in New York. The subject of his talk, “From the Modern Data Stack to Knowledge Graphs,” united roughly fifty years of database technology in one new form. “The industry knows this is a problem,” said Muglia. The five platforms, he said, representing “the modern data stack, have allowed a “new generation of these very, very important data apps to be built....

This leaves us in the middle, seeking good, affordable sound that’s impressive enough to provide awesome background music for a party, immersive enough for a great movie night, and versatile enough to power quiet Zoom calls. Monoprice’s DT-3BT speakers fit into the sweet spot perfectly. And they even have Bluetooth! Building an audio system can be frustrating. Incompatible parts, components that don’t complement each other’s sound profile, and the bevy of required hook ups may drive you bananas....

According to the Global Digital Trust Insights Survey 2022, the increase in cyberattacks in Brazil is among the key concerns of business decision-makers in Brazil, with each threat requiring a different response, new tools and training so teams can be prepared for future incidents. This scenario has prompted 83% of Brazilian organizations to plan for an increase in spending on cybersecurity in the coming year, the research has found. This compares with the predicted rise in budgets cited by 69% of those polled....

Lenovo’s smartphone unit has become a key value 5G player with devices hitting multiple price points. For instance, the Moto Edge will run $699.99 (and an initial sale with $200 off) and join a 5G lineup that includes Motorola One 5G Ace ($329.99), moto g stylus 5G ($399.99) and the razr, a foldable that’s due for an update with a 2nd gen version at $999.99. Doug Michau, executive director of North America Business Development at Motorola Mobility, said Motorola has gained market share as a number of Android players such as Huawei, ZTE, LG and HTE have dropped from the market in US....

But I still use an Android phone. Why? Because it can do things my iPhone can’t do. My previous favorite Android phone was the Ulefone Armor 9. I’ve been using this a lot over the last couple of years. Not only has it been my go-to handset when I need something that can put up with the harshest of environments, but it had cool features like a thermal camera and the ability to connect an endoscope....

The space agency has confirmed that Hubble is up and running again, with all science instruments onboard the spacecraft operational and ready to start collecting data for researchers on the ground. After some final instrument calibrations are completed, the telescope will carry out an observation at the end of the week – the first one since some of Hubble’s key hardware started playing up last month. SEE: An IT pro’s guide to robotic process automation (free PDF) (TechRepublic) The issue started on June 13, when Hubble’s payload computer froze....