Microsoft offers to manage your Windows devices for you
Dubbed Microsoft Managed Desktop (MMD), the service will give customers the option to have Microsoft manage their devices, including pushing out feature updates and security.
As an as-a-service solution, MMD will be sold via a per-user monthly subscription fee based on the size of customer and device type.
From the outset, Microsoft will only offer pre-configured Surface PCs, though Microsoft has already announced a handful of OEM partners coming on board such as Dell and HP, as well as partnerships with DXC, HCL, and Accenture/Avanade.
MMD has already started rolling out to select customers in the US and UK, and will arrive in Australia early next year
Charges laid over alleged $3 million business email compromise scam syndicate
NSW Police and the Australian Border Force (ABF) have charged five members of an alleged Sydney-based coordinated fraud syndicate for their involvement in a business email scam.
The group is alleged to be involved in business email compromises to the value of more than $3 million, along with identity theft, romance scams and the fraudulent sale of goods.
Detectives from the NSW Police Crime Command’s Cybercrime Squad arrested a 36-year-old woman on Liverpool Street, a 20-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman at Chester Hill, another 36-year-old woman at Granville and a 43-year-old Nigerian national at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre.
NSW Police said the Nigerian national allegedly directed the activities of the group from within the detention centre. He has been indicted for the allegation, as well as two counts of knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime, and possessing identity information to commit an indictable offence.
PlayStation Classic: Sony announces a retro micro-console of its own
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=Hx4zkZwvrok
Sony has announced plans to release a miniature replica of its 1994 PlayStation console, with 20 classic games included, just in time for Christmas this year.
Following in the footsteps of Nintendo and its phenomenally popular NES and SNES “Classic Mini” consoles, the PlayStation Classic is an adorable shrunk down version of the original machine which connects to modern TVs via HDMI and is powered by USB.
It includes two full-size replica controllers (the original kind, not the ones with sticks), and will cost $149.99 when it launches on December 3.
games so far confirmed for the PlayStation Classic are Sony’s own Jumping Flash! and Wild Arms, as well as Namco’s Tekken 3 and Ridge Racer Type 4.Final Fantasy VII
ACCC says it’s prepared to sue telco execs who approve misleading ads
The ACCC says it has put telcos on notice over marketing efforts that may mislead consumers, citing past ads from Telstra, Optus and Vodafone that used the term “unlimited” to promote their mobile data offerings.
Earlier this year Australia’s three mobile carriers launched plans that offered unlimited downloads but in all cases came with significant caveats that saw speeds throttled when a certain monthly quota was hit or for certain uses.
Penalties for breaching the Australian Consumer Law increased at the start of September.
Penalties for individuals increased from $220,000 to $500,000 per breach. Penalties for businesses are now the greater of $10 million, three times the value of the benefit received, or where the benefit cannot be calculated, 10 per cent of the annual turnover in the preceding 12 months, the ACCC said.
Joes Podcast Notes
for 20/09/2018
What is ZigBee and why is it important for your smart home?
- As you might well be aware there’s been an explosion in smart home devices over the past few years. What was once referred to as “home automation” and some might referred to as “Internet of Things” has now settled into a more friendly category called The Smart Home.
- Todays Smart home has heating, lighting, cameras, sensors for just about everything, as well as new devices popping up every week to make and turn your home into a connected home.
- So What is ZigBee?
ZigBee is based on the IEEE’s 802.15.4 personal-area network standard.. I know this sounds complicated but all you need to know is that ZigBee is a specification that’s been around for more than a decade, and it’s widely considered an alternative to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for some applications including low-powered devices that don’t require a lot of bandwidth – like for example your smart home sensors. A typical example would be when you have a ZigBee-enabled light bulb and a ZigBee-enabled light switch and you want the light switch to control the light bulb. With ZigBee, the two devices – even if they’re from different manufacturers can speak a common language (which is Zigbee), so there’s no barrier to communication.
- ZigBee does not focus on point-to-point communications, such as Bluetooth, where one device sends data to another device over a short range.
- What Zigbee does is it operates in a mesh like network, which is why it’s great for the smart homes.
- A mesh network is when a network connection is spread out among a variety of wireless nodes that can communicate with each other and share a common network connection across a large area. Think of these nodes as… small transmitters that function in the same way as a wireless router.
- They all constantly send and receive data to one another. ZigBee’s ability to support a mesh network in smart homes means it can boost data transmission range and provide greater stability (even when a single connected node fails and doesn’t work).
- The benefits of Zigbee and another one called Z Wave also works in a similar way if one node fails for some reason and cannot communicate on the mesh network, the master node and second node may communicate by linking to a third node within range. Every node acts as a repeater of sorts, and all nodes cooperate in the distribution of data – hence its called a mesh network.
- Here are some of the big users of ZigBee in the smart home: Amazon, Honeywell, Huawei, Philips
SmartThings, Belkin, Ikea, Osram, Bosch, Miele, Samsung, Panasonic and many more. ZigBee supports up to 65,000 nodes on a single network.
That’s just a little info on Zigbee for those that havent heard of it
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Amazon appears to have leaked some upcoming products
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/9/19/17880394/amazon-sub-smart-plug-leak-alexa
- Amazon appears to have leaked some upcoming products on its UK website. An article on Pocket-lint says its spotted listings for two new Alexa items, One being a smart plug and the other a subwoofer, which appear to be going on sale soon.
- The subwoofer called the Echo Sub, can work in conjunction with one or two other Echos to improve their sound quality. For example , if you put two Echos in a room with the Echo Sub, the leaked listing says you’ll even be able to turn them into a 2.1 stereo system, with the standard Echos acting as left and right channels — something that isn’t currently possible.
- The other item, the Amazon Smart Plug, looks like a fairly standard smart plug, capable of remotely cutting the power to whatever is plugged into it. Using the Alexa app, owners will be able to schedule routines, so you could set a lamp to turn on and off at certain times.
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Apple Music now works with
Android Auto
https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17880196/apple-music-android-auto-feature-now-available
- Apple has just released an update for Apple Music on Android, and the biggest new addition is that it now supports Android Auto…. So if you’re an Android user but prefer Apple’s music subscription service over Google Play Music or Spotify for whatever reason, you now you can listen to it through Google’s in-car platform.
- This also means that Apple, somehow beat YouTube Music to adding it in Android Auto. It’s not the best look for Google, but at least the company has said that a car-optimized YouTube Music experience is coming soon.
- Apple hasn’t ignored some of Android’s conveniences like the microSD car. Apple Music now supports microSD card storage in android auto, that’s something that doesn’t exist on iOS.
- Also the latest Apple Music update on Android now lets you search for songs by entering some of the lyrics you might know. And it brings over the much-improved artist view that came to iOS earlier this month.
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Rumors of a Google Home Hub with a 7” screen
With Built-in Google Assistant
- Google might unveil soon a device that’s designed to challenge the Amazon’s screen-equipped Echo Show. It’ll supposedly be called Google Home Hub.
- Thanks to MySmartPrice details published by the site which show a device that consists of a 7-inch display mounted on a speaker base. The design of the device and white colour scheme reminds us of existing Google Home products.
- Google’s Home Hub will allow you to get weather and traffic reports, ask general questions, and pretty much use Google Assistant like normal, although tasks will be shown on the display alongside verbal feedback.
- You’ll also be able to do things like see your Nest cam feeds on the device’s display, you can view your photos saved to Google Photos, and YouTube, along with third-party apps like Netflix.
- According to a Home Depot retail store listing shared by Android Authority, the Google Home Hub will cost $149. Now Keep in mind the Lenovo Smart Display and JBL Link View cost $199 and $249, respectively, so Home Hub would be much cheaper than them in comparison. No release date yet. Altho it’s rumored to be later this year.
Emails:
dodeca hedron – youtube
Two comments 1. Those hybrid SIM slots in Mobile phones (The ones say they hold 2 SIM cards and an SD card) It’s a slight of hand marketing trick manufacturers use to sell you a phone with higher memory rather than have you add SD memory of your own Let me explain.
The devil’s in the detail, revealed in the usage of the slot Take a closer look at that slot, you’ll find it only handles 2 of the 3 options at any time, never 3! i.e. You can have the following combinations: SIM SIM + SIM SIM + SD You cannot have: SIM + SIM + SD Phone manufacturers used to offer SIM + SIM in one slot and the SD in another. What this meant was you could have 2 SIM cards and add extra memory to your phone for cheap, because SD memory is cheap Then they started making these hybrid slots, so if you want 2 SIM cards, you have to forego the SD memory slot, so if you need lots of memory, then you have to buy a model with lots of memory.
Have a look at the cost of that extra memory in the phone! For every GB of memory the manufacturer has you buy that’s installed into the phone is twice the price of what you could buy the equivalent amount of memory of you bought it in SD format. This is the real reason they got rid of the separate extra SD, to push you to high memory phones where they can make twice the money off you per GB of memory they add, versus you going somewhere else and buying an SD card I’ve written about this slight of hand before elsewhere
Some people thought the hybrid slot was because phones had become so thin, but I’ve dispelled this cognitive dissonance too That slot is not because phones are so thin they need a hybrid slot, because Motorola had models that had dual SIM slots and a separate SD slot and had the world’s thinnest phone when other manufacturers we moving to the hybrid slot and we’re making phones thicker than the Motorola. So much for the thin theory.
Unfortunately, even Motorola have yielded to their parents company influence (Lenovo) and have gone to the Horrible Henious Hybrid slot If the phone being mentions has a slot that truly does have SIM + SIM + SD then please let us know the model because I’d be very interested in looking at it
- Tablets Typical of Apple to try and usurp the tablet name There was a great show in the 80’s, called Le Femme Nikita starring the stunning Aussie actor called Peta Wilson.
All the way through the show, the agents are given their mission on devices that they mostly referred to as a device but also refer to as a tablet! They also called them handhelds. Just typical of Apple to try and last claim to a concert they didn’t come up with, like the GUI, which was used at Xerox years beforehand. Even the handheld mobile device can be attributed to startreks communicator, at least Apple didn’t try and lay claim to this one