[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image="13655" img_size="large" alignment="center" css_animation="appear"][vc_column_text]

How Microsoft Is Sowing the Seeds of an Augmented Reality Future

By Jonathan Vanian as written on fortune.com

In less than ten years, people will routinely interact with digital graphics and holograms beamed onto the real world.

That’s according to Lorraine Bardeen, Microsoft’s (MSFT, +0.77%) general manager of Windows and HoloLens experiences. Speaking Wednesday at the annual AWE conference for augmented reality in Santa Clara, Bardeen discussed why Microsoft sees the nascent technology becoming the next way people use computers beyond mobile touchscreens or the standard keyboard and mouse.

Opposed to virtual reality, augmented reality technology lets people see digital imagery overlaid onto the physical world. Microsoft refers to AR as mixed reality, and it is still a relatively new phenomenon that generated much interest after the popularity of last summer’s blockbuster mobile game Pokemon Go.

Over the past year, major companies like Facebook (FB, +0.36%) and Google(GOOG, +0.13%) have indicated they will incorporate AR tech in significant ways. Facebook, for example, debuted in April new developer tools and features that lets users apply filters to their photos to add special effects, like cartoonish mustaches.

One way Microsoft is trying to popularize AR tech is by revising its classic Paint app to let people draw and design 3D graphics as opposed to traditional two-dimesional images, Bardeen explained. Getting more general consumers—not just tech professionals—familiar with creating 3D graphics “is a fundamental building block” to popularizing AR because it helps accustom the general public to interacting with 3D content.

This fall, people will be able to project their 3D graphics created via the revamped Paint app onto the real world via Windows 10-powered PCs with standard cameras, Bardeen said. Of course, they will have to view the digital images through their computer’s monitor, but Bardeen said it would help the “hundreds of millions of people” who don’t have the appropriate headsets interact with AR tech.

Bardeen also showed a video of Microsoft’s custom studio, a small enclosure surrounded by 106 cameras being used to create 3D imagery people can embed in their apps. By capturing the motion of a person kicking a soccer ball or even a llama slowly walking, Microsoft can then convert those images into digital graphics that people will be able to see overlaid onto the real world with HoloLens or certain Windows 10 PCs.

Bardeen added businesses could use these stock images for purposes like “fan engagement” or “corporate training” similar to how they use traditional stock photography.

However, Microsoft’s HoloLens AR headset that beams digital imagery onto the physical world is not available to the general public. Right now, it is only available for developers or businesses for $3,000 and $5,000. Although Bardeen did not say when Microsoft plans to sell the HoloLens to the public, she said new AR headsets released later this year via partnerships with other manufacturers will be “an entry point into this future of computing.”

Some of the companies slated to release these headsets by year’s end include Dell and Lenovo, although none of the companies have said how much they will cost.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_cta_button2 h2="Looking for a technology partner to assist with a specific project or services?" title="Managed Services Quote" position="bottom" link="url:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.managedsolution.com%2Fmanaged-services-quote-request%2F||"]

As one of the biggest, brightest and friendliest IT companies in Southern California we want you to take advantage of our free security assessment or just request a quote for managed services. We can even work on your behalf to get appropriate projects funded by Microsoft. Call Managed Solution at 800-790-1524.

[/vc_cta_button2][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Announcing the public preview of the Office 365 adoption content pack in Power BI

By Anne Michaels as written on blogs.office.com

Since March 2016, the usage reports in the Office 365 admin center have been providing admins with insights about how users adopt and use the various services in Office 365. Today, we’re pleased to announce the public preview of the Office 365 adoption content pack in Power BI, which enables customers to get more out of Office 365.

The content pack combines the intelligence of the usage reports with the interactive analysis capabilities of Power BI, providing rich usage and adoption insights. With these insights, admins can drive more targeted user training and communication that helps them transform how their organizations communicate and collaborate, enabling a truly modern workplace.

Insights you can act on

Office 365 gives users the freedom to work from anywhere and the services they need to be more productive and collaborative. Sometimes, however, people need a helping hand to get started with Office 365. For example, if someone doesn’t use Skype for Business, they might not know how to get started using Skype or understand how they can leverage it to communicate better. In either case, the IT department might want to connect with this person to provide them with more information or training resources.

The new Office 365 adoption content pack gives you a cross-product view of how users communicate and collaborate to help IT admins provide more targeted user communication. When you better understand how employees use the various services within Office 365, it is easy to decide where to prioritize training and communication efforts. The content pack lets admins further visualize and analyze their Office 365 usage data, create custom reports, share insights and understand how specific regions or departments use Office 365.

Gain deep insights on usage trends

The centerpiece of the content pack is a pre-built dashboard, which provides IT admins with a cross-product view of how users are accessing the suite of products within Office 365. For most of the metrics, the content pack provides data for the last 12 months, so you can easily see how usage is trending and has evolved over time.

The dashboard is split up into four main areas: Understanding adoption, Communication, Collaboration and Activation. Each area provides you with specific usage insights.

Understanding adoption area—Offers an all-up summary of adoption trends that helps you understand how users have adopted Office 365. You can easily see how many licensed users actively use the various Office 365 services, what combination of products are popular within your organization, and analyze adoption trends for individual products.

Communication area—Highlights the services that people use to communicate, such as Skype for Business, Exchange and Yammer. You can see which communication methods are used most by users and drill into details to understand if there are any shifts in how employees use the various tools to communicate.

Collaboration area—Shows how people in your organization use OneDrive for Business and SharePoint to store documents and work together—including how many users are active on their own accounts versus accounts owned by others. This information is a good indicator to understand if people use OneDrive for Business and SharePoint primarily to just store files, or if they are also using these services to share content and collaborate with others.

Activation area—Helps you understand Office 365 ProPlus, Project Pro and Visio Pro activations in your organization. You can easily see how many users have activated the products, enabling admins to ensure that users have the latest versions of Office applications. The report also provides information about the type of device users have activated the products on, helping admins understand what devices are popular in their organization and how many users work on the go.

Access richer usage insights

Every organization has unique questions around usage and adoption. The content pack helps answer these questions, enabling you to pivot, analyze, customize and share the information.

Analyze usage by department, organization or location—Many of you want a full picture of how specific departments or regions use Office 365. To enable these advanced analytics scenarios, the content pack combines the usage data of users with their information in Azure Active Directory (AAD). You can pivot the reports by AAD attributes like location, department or organization information.

Leverage built-in filters to get insights relevant to you—On many reports, contextual filters allow you to easily slice and dice the data available, for example, to understand adoption trends for individual products.

Quickly find out who your power users are—The content pack includes a user activity report for each service to identify power users. These users typically have very thorough product knowledge and can help train other users. They can share how they are using the service, how it helps them every day to be productive, and offer tips on how to get started. Power users can help lead the digital transformation in your organization by example. The user activity report also lets you identify users that have yet to use a particular product. Armed with this information, you can be very targeted in your adoption campaigns.

Customize the content pack—The dashboard and the underlying reports are templates to help you quickly get started with the content pack. The true power of the content pack lies in the underlying data. We want admins to have full control over their data, so we have made sure that you can customize the content pack and structure the charts based on your organization’s needs.

There are three ways to customize the content pack:

• Take one of the pre-built visuals and modify it—by removing information or by changing the visual format, for example.

• Create a brand-new visual by leveraging the underlying data sets.

• Connect to the pbit file in Power BI Desktop, which enables you to bring in your own data sources.

Share the content pack—Using the sharing capabilities of Power BI Pro, you can easily share the dashboard with people both inside and outside of your organization, such as business stakeholders or your leadership team.

Importance of your feedback

We’d like to thank each one of you who participated in the limited preview and who provided feedback on the early versions of the content pack. Over the past several months, we have received numerous pieces of feedback that have helped us identify gaps and ensure that the content pack provides you with actionable insights. And it’s great to hear how it’s already helping many of you to derive even more value out of Office 365:

“The adoption content pack is one of the best Office 365 admin tools for us. It gives us a clear picture of how our organization uses Office 365, and it allows us to get really targeted in our user training efforts, as we know exactly how each user uses the products—or often more important—does not use the products yet.”
—Customer feedback

Get started with the content pack

The content pack is available to all customers free of charge. You’ll only need the free Power BI service to connect to the content pack—use your Office 365 admin account to sign up. You can also customize the dashboards and reports with the free Power BI service. To connect to the content pack, you first need to enable it in the Office 365 admin center. On the Usage Reports page, you will see a new card at the bottom of the page where you can opt in to the content pack. This step kicks off a workflow that generates your historical usage trends. This data processing task takes between 2 and 48 hours, depending on the size of your organization and how long you’ve been using Office 365. After data preparation is complete, it’s ready to show in the content pack. Please follow the steps described to connect to the content pack for your organization.

Please note that you must be a global admin or a product admin (Exchange, Skype for Business, SharePoint) to connect to the content pack.

Azure vs. AWS

Why is Azure growing so quickly? Because organizations all over the world recognize Azure over AWS as the most trusted cloud with:

• The most regions
• Unmatched hybrid capabilities
• The strongest intelligence

Be on the look out for this fishy email! There is a big phishing email going around and many of our customers have reported receiving it. Make sure to look at the url these emails are coming from and double check before clicking any links.

*Our customers are encouraged to contact our help desk when receiving emails like the above - do not click on any links.

According to techrepublic.com, there are 10 easy ways to be able to spot phishing emails. Every day countless phishing emails are sent to unsuspecting victims all over the world. While some of these messages are so outlandish that they are obvious frauds, others can be a bit more convincing. So how do you tell the difference between a phishing message and a legitimate message? Unfortunately, there is no one single technique that works in every situation, but there are a number of things that you can look for.

 

1: The message contains a mismatched URL

One of the first things I recommend checking in a suspicious email message is the integrity of any embedded URLs. Oftentimes the URL in a phishing message will appear to be perfectly valid. However, if you hover your mouse over the top of the URL, you should see the actual hyperlinked address (at least in Outlook). If the hyperlinked address is different from the address that is displayed, the message is probably fraudulent or malicious.

 

2: URLs contain a misleading domain name

People who launch phishing scams often depend on their victims not knowing how the DNS naming structure for domains works. The last part of a domain name is the most telling. For example, the domain name info.brienposey.com would be a child domain of brienposey.com because brienposey.com appears at the end of the full domain name (on the right-hand side). Conversely, brienposey.com.maliciousdomain.com would clearly not have originated from brienposey.com because the reference to brienposey.com is on the left side of the domain name.

I have seen this trick used countless times by phishing artists as a way of trying to convince victims that a message came from a company like Microsoft or Apple. The phishing artist simply creates a child domain bearing the name Microsoft, Apple, or whatever. The resulting domain name looks something like this: Microsoft.maliciousdomainname.com.

 

3: The message contains poor spelling and grammar

Whenever a large company sends out a message on behalf of the company as a whole, the message is usually reviewed for spelling, grammar, and legality, among other things. So if a message is filled with poor grammar or spelling mistakes, it probably didn't come from a major corporation's legal department.

 

4: The message asks for personal information

No matter how official an email message might look, it's always a bad sign if the message asks for personal information. Your bank doesn't need you to send it your account number. It already knows what that is. Similarly, a reputable company should never send an email asking for your password, credit card number, or the answer to a security question.

 

5: The offer seems too good to be true

There is an old saying that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. That holds especially true for email messages. If you receive a message from someone unknown to you who is making big promises, the message is probably a scam.

 

6: You didn't initiate the action

Just yesterday I received an email message informing me I had won the lottery!!!! The only problem is that I never bought a lottery ticket. If you get a message informing you that you have won a contest you did not enter, you can bet that the message is a scam.

 

7: You're asked to send money to cover expenses

One telltale sign of a phishing email is that you will eventually be asked for money. You might not get hit up for cash in the initial message. But sooner or later, phishing artists will likely ask for money to cover expenses, taxes, fees, or something similar. If that happens, you can bet that it's a scam.

 

8: The message makes unrealistic threats

Although most of the phishing scams try to trick people into giving up cash or sensitive information by promising instant riches, some phishing artists use intimidation to scare victims into giving up information. If a message makes unrealistic threats, it's probably a scam. Let me give you an example.

About 10 years ago, I received an official-looking letter that was allegedly from US Bank. Everything in the letter seemed completely legit except for one thing. The letter said my account had been compromised and that if I did not submit a form (which asked for my account number) along with two picture IDs, my account would be canceled and my assets seized.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that it's illegal for a bank to close your account and seize your assets simply because you didn't respond to an email message. Not only that, but the only account I had with US Bank was a car lease. There were no deposits to seize because I did not have a checking or savings account with the bank.

 

9: The message appears to be from a government agency

Phishing artists who want to use intimidation don't always pose as a bank. Sometimes they'll send messages claiming to have come from a law enforcement agency, the IRS, the FBI, or just about any other entity that might scare the average law-abiding citizen.

I can't tell you how government agencies work outside the United States. But here, government agencies don't normally use email as an initial point of contact. That isn't to say that law enforcement and other government agencies don't use email. However, law enforcement agencies follow certain protocols. They don't engage in email-based extortion—at least, not in my experience.

 

10: Something just doesn't look right

In Las Vegas, casino security teams are taught to look for anything that JDLR—just doesn't look right, as they call it. The idea is that if something looks off, there's probably a good reason why. This same principle almost always applies to email messages. If you receive a message that seems suspicious, it's usually in your best interest to avoid acting on the message.

Wanna Decrypter 2.0 ransomware attack: what you need to know

By Bill Brenner as written on nakedsecurity.sophos.com

Updates as of 05/15/2017:

• Multiple news reports have focused on how this attack was launched using NSA code leaked by a group of hackers known as the Shadow Brokers. That’s certainly what seems to have happened based on SophosLabs’ own investigation. A more detailed report on that is planned for early next week.

• Sophos will continue to update its Knowledge Base Article (KBA) for customers as events unfold. Several updates were added today, and are summarized below in the “More guidance from Sophos” section.

• Microsoft took the highly unusual step of making a security update for platforms in custom support (such as Windows XP) available to everyone. The software giant said in a statement: “We know some of our customers are running versions of Windows that no longer receive mainstream support. That means those customers will not have received the Security Update released in March. Given the potential impact to customers and their businesses, we made the decision to make the Security Update for platforms in custom support only, Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003, broadly available for download here.”

• With the code behind Friday’s attack in the wild, we should expect copycats to cook up their own campaigns in the coming days to capitalize on the money-making opportunity in front of them, said Dave Kennedy, CEO and founder of information security consultancy TrustedSec.

• The attack could have been worse, if not for an accidental discovery from a researcher using the Twitter handle @MalwareTechBlog, who found a kill switch of sorts hidden in the code. The researcher posted a detailed account of his findings here. In the post, he wrote: “One thing that is very important to note is our sinkholing only stops this sample and there is nothing stopping them removing the domain check and trying again, so it’s incredibly important that any unpatched systems are patched as quickly as possible.”

***

It was a difficult Friday for many organizations, thanks to the fast-spreading Wanna Decrypter 2.0 ransomware that started its assault against hospitals across the UK before spilling across the globe.

The attack appears to have exploited a Windows vulnerability Microsoft released a patch for in March. That flaw was in the Windows Server Message Block (SMB) service, which Windows computers use to share files and printers across local networks. Microsoft addressed the issue in its MS17-010 bulletin.

SophosLabs said the ransomware – also known as WannaCry, WCry, WanaCrypt and WanaCrypt0r – encrypted victims’ files and changed the extensions to .wnry, .wcry, .wncry and .wncrypt.

Sophos is protecting customers from the threat, which it now detects as Troj/Ransom-EMG, Mal/Wanna-A, Troj/Wanna-C, and Troj/Wanna-D. Sophos Customers using Intercept X will see this ransomware blocked by CryptoGuard. It has also published a Knowledge Base Article (KBA) for customers.

NHS confirms attack

National Health Service hospitals (NHS) in the UK suffered the brunt of the attack early on, with its phone lines and IT systems being held hostage. NHS Digital posted a statement on its website:

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, the Department of Health and NHS England worked Friday to support the affected hospitals, and additional IT systems were taken offline to keep the ransomware from spreading further.

Victims of the attack received the following message:

Find out today if your current system meets today's minimum security recommendations. Call Managed Solution at (800) 208-3617

 

The automotive industry is undergoing a digital transformation. The tech that is now in automobiles allowing them to connect to the internet and giving them capability of receiving services from the cloud is bringing a new wave of innovation. It is believe that over the next three years, more than 90% of cars will be connected. From amazing fuel savings, to predictive maintenance and safety features, to self-driving cars, this new tech will change driving altogether. Microsoft is working in conjunction with the top auto companies in order to deliver these technologies and services to customers everywhere.

“The connected car represents an enormous opportunity for the auto industry, and at the core it’s a software challenge,” says Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of Business Development at Microsoft. “Our mission is to empower car makers with technology that allows them to focus on building even better driving experiences for their customers.”

Microsoft is announcing that they have reached an agreement to license its intellectual property (IP) for connected cars to Toyota, as its first partner in the launch of their new auto licensing program. Learn more here.

This digital transformation that Microsoft is spearheading in the automotive sector is exciting and innovative. They will empower customers with new experiences and an altogether new driving experience.

Microsoft acquires Simplygon to accelerate innovation in enabling 3D for everyone

By Kudo Tsunoda as written on blogs.microsoft.com

I am pleased to announce that Microsoft has acquired Simplygon, a premier developer of automatic 3D data-optimization solutions. This acquisition accelerates our 3D For Everyone vision and strategy, which we introduced with the Windows 10 Creators Update at our event this past October in New York.

Simplygon’s technology and talent will strengthen our position in 3D creation, making it easier to capture, create and share in 3D. It builds on and extends our aspirations to empower a new wave of creativity with the Windows 10 Creators Update, Paint 3D and our online creator community at Remix3D.com.

Simplygon was developed by Donya Labs AB, a privately held company based in Sweden. Donya was founded in 2006 with the aim to be the premier developer of automatic 3D data-optimization solutions. Simplygon is a leader in 3D game optimization, dedicated to helping creators and users of 3D data across industries optimize content pipelines and streamline workflows.

The leadership team, led by CEO Matt Connors, founder and CTO Ulrik Lindahl and co-founder Koshi Hamedi, bring a depth of knowledge around 3D creation optimization, and we’re excited to welcome the team to Microsoft.

The Simplygon leadership team shares their thoughts on the news here.

8 retail technology predictions for 2017

By Sharon Goldman as written on www.cio.com

Consumer confidence reached new heights in 2016, technology contributed mightily to the retail and ecommerce success. Here are the top tech predictions for retail in the coming year.

Shoppers opened their pocketbooks wide over the holidays in 2016, pushing retail growth estimates (the Wall Street Journal reported the fastest growth rate since 2005) and consumer confidence to new heights — with ecommerce a particular bright spot with over $110 billion in sales, according to Forrester Research. Technology contributed mightily to that retail success, at every stage and angle of the shopping journey, both in brick-and-mortar stores and online — from browsing, point-of-sale and shipping to checkout, supply chain, payments and much more. That won’t change in 2017, as top retailers have already long-planned their technology priorities for the coming year. Here, experts weigh in on some of their top technology predictions:

1. Alternative checkout methods will continue to grow.

With a smartphone in every pocket and the expansion of advanced barcodes and imaging technologies for scanning products, faster alternative checkout methods will continue to grow across the retail sector, says Tony Rodriguez, CTO of digital identification solutions provider Digimarc. “Sam’s Club already offers in-aisle checkout, while Amazon gained attention for its vision of grocery shopping sans checkout lines, so anticipate that other grocers and retailers will seek shortcuts for shoppers that they hope will breed brand loyalty,” he says. “We expect retailers and brands to lead the way with enhanced product packaging and other options for easy checkout.”

2. The store associate will become a high-tech hub.

The No. 1 investment in retail will be the store associate and how to turn them into a beacon of knowledge and relationship builder, says Bill Zujewski, executive vice president of marketing at mobile platform Tulip Retail. Retailers have begun investing in mobile solutions that give access to the entire product inventory and product details, but that’s no longer enough — instead, store associates need to be able to anticipate and surpass customer expectations.

“When a customer comes into the store, sales associates will be notified and ready with product offerings based on valuable data they have at their fingertips including the customer's recent purchases, loyalty rewards level, online browsing history, activity log and shopping preferences,” he says.

3. Chatbots will become a priority retail channel.

[This year] will be a foundational one when it comes to applying AI-powered chatbots that are improved with new data streams and integration across channels, says Dave O’Flanagan, CEO and co-founder of cloud platform Boxever. “Chatbots are only as valuable as the relationships they build and the scenarios they can support, so their level of sophistication will make or break them,” he says. A recent survey found consumers aren’t yet as excited about responsive chatbots as brands think — so retailers will need to focus their attention on improving their messaging applications to establish more meaningful connections between their brand and customer, he adds.

4. The internet of things (IoT) will boost supply chain efficiency.

IoT is helping retailers connect physical and digital worlds and to facilitate real-time interaction with consumers both inside and outside the store, says Andrew Hopkins, IoT lead for retail at Accenture Mobility, part of Accenture Digital. “Connected devices and products will enable retailers to optimize operations in the face of a more complex supply chain, increasingly important digital channels, and evolving customer demands,” he explains.

Some examples: Managers could use smart tags to adjust pricing in real-time; IoT-enabled sensors would allow store managers to monitor and adjust lighting and temperature settings; businesses could use sensors to automate manual functions such as tracking inventory or changing prices. “This would give sales associates more time to spend interacting with customers, further improving the in-store experience,” he says.

5. Social media will continue to become more shoppable.

Retailers have learned to love consumer-generated content, with photo sharing and hashtags turning into word-of-mouth marketing that works. Now, we’ll begin to see more retailers investing in technology that makes those content experiences more shoppable, says Jim Rudden, CMO of Spredfast. “Instead of having to leave the page or site to search and buy the products they see in photos, consumers will be able to easily click on the content, and purchase the products within, during that moment of discovery,” he says. “Those consumer-generated pieces will take on a whole new life.”

6. Digital convergence will be a big buzzword.

The ecommerce of 2017 and beyond will be all about starting to focus on the convergence of a variety of digital technologies — using voice interfaces, the power of AI and realistic, personalized avatars that support the shopping experience, says Shirley Romig, global retail strategy lead of digital marketing consultancy SapientNitro. “Imagine talking to your personal shopper on the phone and instantly seeing an assortment of dresses you are looking for to wear to your daughter’s graduation,” she says.

“You digitally ‘try on’ the dress using your exact, 3-D image for fit, tell your shopper to size up and check out via voice command.” Ecommerce will evolve to include AI-powered online, personal shoppers that are trained to know preferences, like a favorite store sales associate: “Instead of onerously sorting through pages of product, soon you’ll be able to talk to your AI via your mobile phone and ‘she’ does all the leg work.”

7. 2017 will be the year of the retail API.

APIs have revolutionized industries by bringing consumers apps such as Uber, Google Maps and Pandora — now, retail has started to catch on, says Jett McCandless, CEO of supply chain technology provider project44, though he adds there are still strides to be made in the industry’s widespread understanding and implementation of APIs.

“Retail CIOs will need to understand the impact this technology has on inventory optimization; setting — and meeting — customer delivery expectations; adhering to the demands of today’s always-on consumer and driving real-time visibility across the entire supply chain network,” he says. “Web-service APIs empower retailers to compete in the new on-demand reality by delivering goods in the shortest timeframe possible with the highest level of transparency and operational efficiency.”

8. Mobile payments UX will become more seamless.

Retailers know consumers want a seamless shopping experience — and mobile payments technologies are struggling to bridge the gaps. Look for greater consistency in UX across payment platforms in 2017, as well as increased security measures and the introduction of digital verification solutions, says Cody Winton, CEO and co-founder of personal identity platform Credntia.

“There will be efforts to create a more cohesive payments process, and ease fragmentation across platforms and solutions in the FinTech space,” Winton says. “For example, the introduction of a digitally-scanned license or passport at point of sale will create a seamless user experience by allowing consumers to conveniently switch between the mobile wallet or banking app and a digital credential management app, instead of needing a physical wallet.”