Where street addresses help you find a physical location on a map, connected devices can use IP addresses to find and connect to a device on the Internet. For endpoints like your home’s broadband, an external IP address is assigned by whichever ISP (Internet Service Provider) you subscribe to. The ISPs themselves draw from pools of available IP addresses assigned to them by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority), a division of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)....

This explainer will take a look at the specific promises Web3 and its proponents are currently making, what pitfalls face the adoption of the technology, and why something that doesn’t even really exist yet is already causing such a stir among some of the biggest names in the tech industry. What is Web3? Web3 is a still-developing idea for a third generation of the web. It follows Web 1.0, with its reliance on traditional web pages filled with content produced by commercial entities, and Web 2....

In October, Microsoft reported that the Microsoft Cloud generated $20.7 billion in revenues for Q1 FY22, meaning it is on a roughly $80 billion annual run-rate pace. So even though you can’t buy – or subscribe to – a “Microsoft Cloud” SKU, Microsoft sales and partners are aiming to sell users as many pieces of the Microsoft Cloud as possible. What’s likely coming to the Microsoft Cloud in 2022? For one, the Microsoft Cloud is poised to get a new infusion from Nuance....

Watches have been mounted on my left wrist for most of my life and I appreciate the ability to glance down to check the time and date. Watches have evolved over the past twenty years since I’ve been covering mobile technology with some smartwatches able to provide functions found in phones just a couple of years ago. At first glance, the Whoop 4.0 seems to be a step back with no display at all....

The Settings app will soon include a new section under Accounts called “Your Microsoft account” where users can manage subsections for Microsoft 365 Office apps and OneDrive storage. It also includes links to order history, payment details and Microsoft Rewards. Until now, these account management options were available on the Microsoft account management page associated with a Microsoft account. But soon Windows 11 users will be able to manage these accounts within the Settings app....

Put them together, and Leighton proclaims, “Akamai is expanding from delivering and securing applications to empowering developers to build on it. With Linode, we’re taking the next major step in our evolution: marrying Linode’s experience in cloud computing with Akamai’s leadership in scale and security to create the world’s most distributed compute platform.” It appears to be working. In Akamai’s latest financial report, its third-quarter security software revenue was $380 million, up 13%, while its compute revenue was $109 million, up 72%....

Cybersecurity researchers at Mandiant have detailed how APT41, a state-sponsored cyber-espionage and hacking group working out of China compromised at least six US government networks, as well as other organisations, sometimes repeatedly, between May 2021 and February 2022. The US Department of Justice indicted APT41 hackers in September 2020, but it doesn’t appear to have had an impact on the persistent nature of the attacks. SEE: Cybersecurity: Let’s get tactical (ZDNet special report) According to analysis of the attacks, many of the initial compromises came in June 2021 by targeting insecure web applications....

The restaurant industry is experiencing a labor shortage, as many restaurants find it hard to fill job openings. To help employees focus on customers and “higher-value responsibilities”, X1 and S50 are meant to take on menial and repetitive tasks, according to a press release. X1 is a food-service robot designed to run food and drinks to customers when employees cannot. It’s equipped with collision-free and spill-proof technology. X1 can also help employees bus tables and take dirty dishes to the kitchen for cleaning....

The Xbox Series X and Series S are both currently available, offering different capabilities for significantly different prices. If you don’t want to spend $500 on the Xbox Series X, but still want to choose from hundreds of games, the Series S is more than $250 cheaper than the Series X. (You have the option to pay in monthly installments without the use of a third party like Klarna if you buy an Xbox from Microsoft directly....

Microsoft is back to its “how can we make things as hard as possible” tricks with this one. I once described Microsoft as appearing to have an unwritten mission statement: “Microsoft builds incredibly deep, powerful, and flexible software products that – before they see the light of day – must be infused with a level of unnecessary inconvenience, incomprehensible restrictions, and regressive policies such that all possible joy has been removed prior to customer contact....

The new navigation layout might mean that Instagram is going to redirect efforts back into being the photo-sharing app it once was instead of becoming the next big shopping or short-form video app. Starting next month, the bar at the bottom of the app will now have the creating content ‘plus sign’ icon in the middle instead of the Reels icon. That places creating content at the front and center of the app, instead of short-form video....

On Monday, Zoom announced that it’s leveraging OpenAI’s technology to expand Zoom IQ, a smart companion for Zoom, by adding AI experiences that can optimize its customers’ workflows. Also: Just how big is this new generative AI? Think internet-level disruption Over the past year, Zoom IQ has been slowly expanding on smart features including smart meeting recordings. Zoom is now adding AI-backed productivity features such as chat thread summaries and text generation....

China cracked down on the use of “unauthorised” VPNs throughout the course of 2017 with a campaign to take down and control censorship-thwarting software that attempts to break the country’s surveillance and blocking lists. The VPN crackdown culminated in the removal of all VPN apps by Apple from the Chinese App Store in July, and at the same time, Beijing ordered its state-owned internet service providers, including China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, to completely block access to VPNs by February 2018, ahead of the slated March 31 ban....

In the 2021 Randori Attack Surface Report, researchers assigned each asset with a “Temptation Score” – effectively the likelihood an attacker will go after it. Any exposed asset with a score over 30 is considered to be high, with the highest-ranking assets currently within their corpus reaching an attacker Temptation Score of 55. The version of SolarWinds being actively exploited have an average Temptation Score of 40. The report found that more than 25% of organizations have RDP exposed to the internet, while 15% of organizations are still running outdated versions of IIS 6, which Microsoft hasn’t supported for six years....

Perhaps speculative fiction can make more of us pay attention to the problems that are piling up, from climate change to economic inequality and AI that’s less a killer robot and more ‘computer says no’ on a global scale. This could reveal what Douglas Rushkoff claims in the introduction to 22 Ideas About The Future are “truths we have hidden from ourselves”. “You can’t read about the world after climate catastrophe without accepting the possibility of climate change to begin with,” he suggests....

CollPlant is developing a plant-based recombinant human collagen called rhCollagen, which doesn’t require animal or human sources to produce and doesn’t cause an immune response in humans. 3D Systems’ technology would be used to create a soft tissue matrix that could be designed to match a patient’s anatomy to support a breast implant. This graphic from CollPlant’s site illustrates how the system would work. 3D Systems is focused on healthcare expansion as are a bevy of other 3D printing companies....

NTT officials said none of the attacks were successful and added that the games went on without a hitch. But the number of attacks was 2.5x the number seen during the 2012 London Summer Olympics. NTT’s Andrea MacLean compared the cybersecurity struggle to Harry Potter’s final fight against Voldemort, calling the effort to protect the event “Herculean.” “Cybercriminals certainly saw the Games – and its related supply chain – as a high-value target with low downtime tolerance....

Whether you’re just starting in the tech industry or trying to advance in an established career, the goal will always be to get paid as well as possible for doing work you enjoy. But if you’re going to land that dream position you found while scouring tech job sites, you need to bring your A-game to the application process. Fortunately, a handful of tips can give you an edge over the job-seeking competition....

At the Enter, the Metaverse conference in London, in December 2021, UK Palo Alto, CA-based Together Labs announced its VCORE ERC-20 token, which will become available to users solely outside of the US and Canada in 2022 via its avatar-based social platform IMVU. The token will allow users to influence the ‘future of the metaverse’. The IMVU platform currently has over 200,000 active creators and over 1,000,000 daily active users, which is available as a desktop experience or via an iOS or Android app....

Whether these employees would actually quit is another matter, but at least when asked by YouGov in a survey commissioned by Microsoft — an advocate of hybrid work — some 51% would quit if the current mix of remote and office work vanished. As Microsoft contends in a blogpost, hybrid work has become a “must-have” as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. SEE: Want to get things done in tech?...