Channel

• Fujitsu wants technology to shape a better future – its technology, of course

  Quantum, HPC, and AI to take us to rainbow sunshine happy land
  Dan Robinson Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 13:26 UTC 2

  Fujitsu wants to make the world a better place and thinks technology is the way to do it. Fujitsu technology, naturally.

  The Japanese multinational laid out its vision – outlining an automated, converged world, with AI to support decision making – for the next decade or so during its ActivateNow: Technology Summit online. Fujitsu also explained how it believes technology will help to address various global challenges, including climate change, biodiversity, inequality, and (in developed countries) an ageing population.

  Kicking off the keynote address, CTO Vivek Mahajan said Fujitsu believes it has a responsibility as a tech company to address global issues, and saw technology as key to solving these challenges. "The potential for innovation to make a positive impact is enormous," he said.

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• First they came for Notepad. Now they're coming for Task Manager

  Is nothing safe from the dead hand of the Windows 11 design aesthetic?
  Richard Speed Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 12:46 UTC 12

  Windows' murderous Task Manager looks set to get a makeover in Windows 11 after a work-in-progress turned up in the latest Insider Dev Channel build.

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• The robots are coming! 12 million jobs lost to automation in Europe by 2040 – analyst

  Ageing populations, competition, cost-cutting and COVID-19 driving increased adoption
  Lindsay Clark Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 11:51 UTC 22

  Across Europe, 12 million jobs will be lost by 2040 through automation technologies, according to analyst firm Forrester Research.

  With the pandemic increasing the adoption of digital technologies in business, the region is forecast to embrace automation to address its demographic challenges, the analyst said in a new report. By 2050, the five leading economies in Europe – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK – are expected to have 30 million fewer people of working age.

  The report also mentioned that investments in automation will become key to how European governments look at their competitiveness.

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• NortonLifeLock and Avast tie-up falls under UK competition regulator's spotlight

  CMA invites comments from 'interested parties' on what merger means to them
  Paul Kunert Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 11:03 UTC 5

  The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has invited comments from industry and interested parties about NortonLifeLock's proposed $8bn purchase of fellow infosec outfit Avast.

  The merger inquiry will run until the 16 March when the comments will be collated and assessed to determine if there is sufficient concern to warrant a deeper investigation.

  "The CMA is considering whether it is or may be the case that this transaction, if carried into effect, will result in the creation of a relevant merger situation under the merger provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002," it said.

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• Lots of new toys, caps lock still stuck on: ONLYOFFICE hits version 7

  LibreOffice alternative unfurls latest productivity software update
  Richard Speed Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 10:15 UTC 4

  Another contender in the productivity stakes, ONLYOFFICE Docs, has hit version 7, introducing fillable forms as well as multiple tweaks for its web and desktop applications.

  ONLYOFFICE is yet another option for users seeking an alternative to the tech giants, and currently comes in a self-hosted or desktop guise. A cloud version will, according to the team, "be available a bit later."

  The first major release of 2022, version 7 is a handy update. While the word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation modules have useful modifications, most eye-catching is the ability to create fillable forms online.

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• Web daddy Tim Berners-Lee on privacy, data sharing, and the web's future

  'Ensure that code you write works with these open standards'
  Dan Robinson Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 09:30 UTC 8

  Sir Tim Berners-Lee said today he believes many current global challenges can be solved if people can be convinced to share data – but on their own terms.

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• SUSE announces new distro for those who miss the old CentOS: Liberty Linux

  Run like RHEL
  Liam Proven in Prague Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 08:21 UTC 12

  Official details remain scant, but SUSE Liberty Linux is a new member of the growing tribe of CentOS Linux replacements. The new distro is a SUSE rebuild of CentOS 8, aimed at near-perfect RHEL 8 compatibility.

  Since Red Hat killed off CentOS Linux and replaced it with CentOS Stream, there's been renewed activity in the world of drop-in RHEL replacements. Now a new entrant has joined AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux, as SUSE enters the fray with its own rebuild of Red Hat's freely-available source code.

  As it has only appeared on SUSE's website over night, we don't have a demo version at time of writing, so here is what we know so far.

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• Red Cross forced to shutter family reunion service following cyberattack and data leak

  Director-general pleads with cyber-scum: leave this data alone, because the people involved have suffered enough
  Laura Dobberstein Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 07:58 UTC 6

  Humanitarian organization the International Red Cross disclosed this week that it has fallen foul of a cyberattack that saw the data of over 515,000 "highly vulnerable people" exposed to an unknown entity.

  The target of the attack was the organisation's Restoring Family Links operation, which strives to find missing persons and reunite those separated from their families due to armed conflict, migration, disaster, detention and other catastrophic events. The service is free, but is currently offline.

  Among the stolen data were names, locations, and contact information. The org said the data originated from at least 60 Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies around the world.

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• McAfee and FireEye rename themselves ‘Trellix’

  To evoke support for growing things, not the 1990s vendor of web-pages-made-easy-ware
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 07:01 UTC 13

  LogoWatch Newly combined security outfits McAfee and FireEye have revealed a new name: "Trellix".

  Readers may find the name familiar, as another tech company used the same name in the 1990s and early 2000s when it offered intranet and web published tools such as Trellix Web.

  In 2001, this press release announced that Trellix had licensed tech from a company called Pyra Labs, which operated a service called "Blogger". Yes, that Blogger – the platform Google acquired in 2003 and which was quickly found to have serious security problems. A year after the Pyra Labs news, we reported that Trellix was acquired by Interland, which rated it as possessing "the best technology in terms of novice users creating professional quality websites".

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• Singapore gives banks two-week deadline to fix SMS security

  Edict follows widespread bank phishing scam claiming well over $6.3 million
  Laura Dobberstein Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 06:01 UTC 5

  A widespread phishing operation targeting Southeast Asia's second-largest bank – Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) – has prompted the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to introduce regulations for internet banking that include use of an SMS Sender ID registry.

  Singapore banks have two weeks to remove clickable links in text messages or e-mails sent to retail customers. Furthermore, activation of a soft token on a mobile device will require a 12-hour cooling off period, customers must be notified of any request to change their contact details, and fund transfer threshold will by default be set to SG$100 ($74) or lower.

  MAS has also offered a vague directive requiring banks to issue more scam education alerts, and to do so more often.

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• APNIC: Big Tech's use of carrier-grade NAT is holding back internet innovation

  IPv4 limits apps to simple interactions, and in 2021 IPv6 adoption growth was just three per cent
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Thu 20 Jan 2022 // 03:58 UTC 32

  Carriers and Big Tech are happily continuing to use network address translation (NAT) and IPv4 to protect their investments, with the result that transition to IPv6 is glacial while the entire internet is shaped in the image of incumbent players.

  That's the opinion of Geoff Huston, chief scientist at regional internet registry the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC).

  Huston's opinion was published in the conclusion to a lengthy post titled "IP addressing in 2021" that reports on IPv4 and IPv6 usage across last year.

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