Stories by Blair Hanley Frank

Windows 10's next major update arrives April 11

After months of waiting, beta tests, and trickles of information about new features, the next major update for Windows 10 will arrive on April 11. Microsoft announced Wednesday that the Creators Update, as it’s known, will start rolling out to users of the company’s latest operating system in roughly two weeks.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank30 March 17 00:00

Excel for Windows finally gets real-time collaboration

People working on Excel spreadsheets will be able to do so live from Microsoft’s app for Windows, starting Tuesday. Microsoft launched a beta update for the app’s real-time co-authoring feature, letting testers collaborate with one another on the same file from inside the app.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank29 March 17 05:21

BlueJeans teams with Dolby for teleconference audio clarity

BlueJeans customers will be getting improved call quality, thanks to a new partnership the company unveiled Tuesday. Dolby is working with the videoconferencing company to improve call clarity for people using its service.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank29 March 17 05:14

Skype for Business admins get tool to diagnose call problems

IT administrators managing a fleet of Skype for Business users will have an easier time of diagnosing and fixing problems that may arise for them. Microsoft unveiled the beta of a new Call Analytics Dashboard on Monday, which is supposed to provide admins with a diagnosis of what issues users are having on a call.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank28 March 17 03:48

Trello connects to HipChat, BitBucket, Jira and Confluence

Trello is getting hooked into the entire Atlassian ecosystem with a series of integrations unveiled Wednesday. The new “power-ups” for the project management software connect it with BitBucket, Jira, HipChat and Confluence, to help customers get their work done more efficiently.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank23 March 17 00:00

Slack channel names can be written in more languages

Slack’s international customers are now able to set channel names in their native tongue, thanks to an update the group chat service rolled out Thursday.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank18 March 17 03:11

Google pulls virtual assistant ad after user outcry

Google Home users got a surprise Thursday when their virtual assistants cheerily mentioned that the live-action remake of “Beauty and the Beast” is opening in theaters this weekend. The ad has since been pulled.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank17 March 17 11:44

Oracle promises IaaS growth as cloud business rises

Oracle’s third quarter financial results continue to show that the company’s future is in the cloud. On Wednesday, the company reported massive growth in its software- and platform-as-a-service businesses, promising further gains as its customers do away with their data centers.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank17 March 17 07:26

AWS offers Alexa developers free cloud credits

Developers interested in extending the capabilities of Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant have some more free tools in their arsenal, thanks to a program the company announced Wednesday.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank16 March 17 03:34

AWS follows Google with Reserved Instance flexibility changes

Customers who have Reserved Instance contracts with Amazon Web Services will be able to subdivide some of their Linux and Unix virtual machine instances while maintaining their capacity discounts, thanks to pricing changes announced Monday.

Written by Blair Hanley Frank15 March 17 07:50
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