Tech Insight : What Is Microsoft Azure?

In this insight, we look at what Microsoft Azure is, plus what it offers businesses. Azure  Microsoft Azure (formerly Windows Azure) is Microsoft’s public cloud computing platform. Public cloud refers to cloud computing services offered over the public Internet and available to anyone, i.e. the services are shared with multiple customers rather than just controlled…

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Tech News : Major NHS Supplier Hit By Ransomware Attack

Advanced, an IT supplier to the NHS, has been hit by a ransomware attack that could take a month to recover from. What Happened?  Birmingham-based ‘Advance’ provides digital services to the NHS such as patient check-in and NHS 111. The company’s Adastra software works with 85 per cent of NHS 111 services. Advanced reported spotting…

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Tech News : New WhatsApp Feature : Leave Silently

New privacy features being rolled out this month mean that WhatsApp users can now leave group chats silently. Three New Privacy Features  WhatsApp has announced the introduction of three new privacy features: Leave Groups Silently, Choose Who Can See When You’re Online, and Screenshot Blocking For View Once Messages. Leave Groups Silently – For users…

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Featured Article : Ofcom Investigates Whether 999 Calls Work (Via VoIP) During Emergencies

Communications regulator Ofcom has opened an investigation to make sure that telecoms providers are complying with rules to ensure that there is always uninterrupted access to 999 calls. Investigation Into Compliance With General Condition A3.2(b)  The new investigation will essentially decide whether providers are operating in a way that meets with General Condition A3.2(b), which relates to…

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Tech News : 60% Of Us Will Have Digital Wallets By 2026

While some people are busy asking whether we’re seeing the death of cryptocurrencies, a new report says 60 percent of us will be using digital wallets by 2026. Digital Wallet Usage Driven By ‘Superapps’  A Juniper Research study says that the presence of ‘superapps’ will drive digital wallet use in developing countries that are currently…

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Featured Article : Pros and Cons of Weakening Encryption

With the Online Safety Bill threatening to undermine end-to-end encryption, we look at the strengths and weaknesses of this security trade-off. Encryption  Encryption comes from the science of cryptography. In today’s digital world, encryption refers to using electronic devices to generate unique encryption algorithms which essentially scramble messages and data, making them unintelligible to anyone…

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Tech News : Google Improves ‘Quoted Search’

Google has made it easier to do quoted searches by adding snippets to search results to help users save time in locating a phrase in a web page. Quoted Searches  Quoted Searches are searches where the search term is placed within quotation marks to find an exact match in the search engine results. However, although…

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Tech Insight : What is GitHub, GitLab Etc?

In this insight, we take a look at what GitHub and GitLab are, and why they are important in the world of software development. GitHub, from GitHub Inc., is a not-for-profit website and cloud-based hosting service for open-source development projects – it is the largest open-source host. It helps developers, working on software projects, to…

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Security Stop-Press : GitHub Users Targeted With Malicious Copies Of Repositories

Cyber security researchers have warned that GitHub users are being targeted with similarly named but malicious copies (containing malicious code) of legitimate repositories. The copied repositories are designed to siphon user environment variables, steal API keys, tokens, crypto keys, and execute arbitrary code on affected endpoints. The advice to developers / GitHub users is to…

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