Here are some of the technology focused stories I’ve found interesting over the last couple days.
iPad OS From a First Timer – Part 2
Yesterday I posted part 2 of my thoughts on iPad OS.
The Future of Voting in Elections
On an episode of The Vergecast Podcast, the hosts interviewed a cyber security expert about voting systems. This interview was recorded in March, and is very US centric, but I think it is relevant for any election system. Kim Zetter cautions against online voting, and details issues with the existing systems in the United States.
I deal with technology for a living, and I am a firm believer that we should not allow online voting in our elections, and most of the cyber security community is in agreement on that. There is already significant worry over election interference from outside forces through disinformation and influence campaigns, we should not allow the possibility of direct manipulation by exposing the voting infrastructure to the internet.
AMD Announces First Ryzen 4000 Desktop Processors
AMD has announced the first processors in the Ryzen 4000 series for desktops. These processors are for system builders like Dell, HP, etc, and represent the first of the company’s Zen 3 platform. These processors promise better performance than the previous generation while being more efficient. These products for system builders will likely find their way into desktop machines destined for business customers.
AMD says that the Ryzen 4000 processors for consumers will be released some time in Q3 2020.
Twitter Bans Thousands of Accounts Linked to QAnon Conspiracy Theory
Twitter this week has taken action against users and groups promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory that is popular with some far right groups. The company says it has banned over 7,000 Twitter accounts linked to promoting the conspiracy, and will no longer allow topics related to it to appear in Twitter search or trends.
Twitter, like Facebook, has been under significant scrutiny for allowing conspiracy theories, misleading and untrue facts on its network, but unlike Facebook has been taking steps over the last several weeks to combat disinformation.
Slack Files Competition Complaint Against Microsoft in the EU
Slack has filed an official complaint in the EU against Microsoft, alleging that Microsoft is using a market dominant position to push it’s Microsoft Teams product unfairly. Slack’s complaint says in part that Microsoft has “illegally tied” its Microsoft Teams product to Office and is “force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers.”
The complaint alleges that Microsoft is breaking EU laws. While this doesn’t affect the North American market directly, this might result in changes being made to Microsoft business practices in the long term.
Microsoft Teams was clearly built to be a competitor to Slack, and Microsoft’s decision to include it as part of existing Microsoft 365 subscriptions does make it harder for many companies to justify the additional cost of a duplicate product like Slack.
I think that Slack has a case here, and while this doesn’t mean Teams is going to go away, or even that Microsoft will have to start charging for it individually, I think there will be some punitive damage that the EU will levy against Microsoft….. eventually.
Lenovo Announces Gaming Focused Smartphone with a pop up Selfie Camera…. On The Side
Lenovo’s new “Legion Phone Duel” phone is a monster of a phone that isn’t coming to North American markets, which means that I usually wouldn’t mention it. However, this phone is unique in that it features a pop up selfie camera that is on the side of the phone, meaning it will be on the top of the phone when held in landscape mode. This will be useful for broadcasting video of mobile games with a self shot, but I am here for the war against portrait video. This camera will encourage video calls to be done in landscape mode, the correct orientation.
This isn’t practical on phones because of form factor, but I do think we need to see more devices with cameras that take landscape orientation into account. I’m looking at you, every tablet except the recently released Amazon Fire HD 8.