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I’ve used Fvwm95, CDE, KDE, Xfce, AfterStep, Blackbox, Enlightenment, Cinnamon, Mate, GNOME, and nearly every desktop that has ever been available to Linux. I’ve also used Ubuntu-based, Fedora-based, Arch-based, and just about any distribution based on nearly any other distribution. The combinations have been staggering over the years. Needless to say, I’ve experienced it all since I started using Linux in 1997. Also: How to choose the right Linux desktop distribution Because of using so many Linux distributions over the years, very little surprises me these days....

On Wednesday, cybersecurity researchers from JFrog said that hundreds of malicious packages have been identified, created to steal valuable personally identifiable information (PII) from developers. According to researchers Andrey Polkovnychenko and Shachar Menashe, the repositories were first detected on March 21 and steadily grew from roughly 50 malicious npm packages to over 200 in a matter of days. The miscreants responsible for the npm repositories have developed an automated script that targets the @azure npm scope, alongside @azure-rest, @azure-tests, @azure-tools, and @cadl-lang....

Working with a series of partners including Evolve Bank & Trust, Paxos Trust Company, and Circle, Mastercard said it will begin testing the ability for banks and crypto companies to offer a card option for people wanting to spend digital currencies anywhere Mastercard is accepted. Specifically, Paxos and Circle will use their platforms to facilitate the conversion of crypto to fiat through fiat-backed stablecoins, a class of crypto that’s backed by reserve assets for price stability....

Current Microsoft board chair John W. Thompson will be staying on the board as lead independent director – a post he held on the board from 2012 to 2014. Thompson led Microsoft’s search for a new CEO from 2013 to 2014. “In this (chair) role, Nadella will lead the work to set the agenda for the board, leveraging his deep understanding of the business to elevate the right strategic opportunities and identify key risks and mitigation approaches for the board’s review,” according to a company statement....

Microsoft’s partner network, which includes roughly 400,000 companies, is key to the way the company sells, as its own direct salesforce is not huge. Microsoft’s annual partner conference, Inspire, is slated to happen virtually again this year from July 19 to 20.

“We’re extending that same passwordless technology that we had for commercial earlier this year to consumers. It’s simple to set up. If you have a Microsoft account, you can use the Authenticator [app] and within a few steps you can be passwordless,” says Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft corporate vice president of the Microsoft Security, Compliance, Identity and Management division. “We are going completely passwordless for Microsoft accounts. So you don’t need a password at all....

Update: Microsoft has given me the same statement, attributed to the same exec. And a spokesperson said the company declined to talk about possible timing for this change. The statement from Aaron Woodman, VP Windows Marketing: “In the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22509 released to the Dev Channel on Wednesday, we streamlined the ability for a Windows Insider to set the ‘default browser’ to apps that register for http:, https:, ....

Two of the vulnerabilities are rated critical – CVE-2022-22006 and CVE-2022-24501 – while the rest are rated important. In the Redmond giant’s latest round of patches, usually released on the second Tuesday of each month in what is known as Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has fixed problems including remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities, denial of service bugs, privilege escalation bugs, spoofing issues, information leaks, and policy bypass exploits. None of the vulnerabilities are being actively exploited, but Sophos noted that a public proof-of-concept has been released for CVE-2022-21990....

The updated Paint app for Windows 11 includes refreshed “Edit Color” and “Resize and Skew” dialogs to fit with the Windows 11 design. The updated Paint app is available for Windows 11 to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel, which Microsoft announced in a blogpost. SEE: Windows 11: Here’s how to get Microsoft’s free operating system update A little while back, with Paint 3D in the wings for Windows 10 and Microsoft’s focus on touch displays, Microsoft seemed ready to kill the classic MS Paint app....

For organizations that have been using Zoom as their primary videoconferencing functionality, the case for switching starts with Zoom’s well-documented security and privacy problems, which were serious enough to require the company to freeze new feature development while it worked on the issues. (The company signed a wide-ranging settlement with the New York State Attorney General’s office agreeing to “a comprehensive data security program [and] enhanced privacy controls.”) See also: 49-person grid is coming to Chrome and Edge, as breakout rooms arrive Assuming Zoom can assuage customers’ security concerns, it has some significant advantages over Teams, including far better name recognition and a more mature feature set....

Microsoft announced the Teams Premium add-on for $10 per user per month in October and is now ready to test some of the additional features with commercial customers. The Teams Premium add-on includes features that should benefit all kinds of meeting participants and organizers – whether they’re on 1-on-1s, virtual appointments, or town halls, and webinars. As per the original plan, Teams Premium features begin to roll out in December as part of this preview....

Why is that important? Because, on paper at least, the new $1,000 Edge Plus looks like it’ll directly compete with Samsung’s $1,200 flagship. Motorola has learned a lot about how its customers use a stylus thanks to the Moto G Stylus, and now the company has brought that same functionality over to the Motorola Edge Plus. The S22 Ultra, of course, is a Note in a Galaxy S-series’ body with support for Samsung’s S Pen stylus....

Lockwise has two guises: One in the browser itself at about:logins and a separate app for iOS and Android that can become the default password manager for your phone, without needing the overhead of Firefox the browser to start up. It is the latter and lighter option that has hit the end of the support road. “The Firefox Lockwise app will no longer be updated and supported by Mozilla and will not be available in the Apple App and Google Play Stores,” Mozilla said in its email....

NASA earlier this month pencilled in its third Space Launch System rocket and Orion launch attempt for September 27 with a backup date on October 2. The previous attempts were called off due to hydrogen leaks and engine problems. This time, Florida is bracing for Tropical Storm Ian to become a major hurricane by the time it reaches the west coast of the peninsula, which could happen as early as Tuesday, CNN reports....

Reaching the launch pad marked a key milestone for the Artemis I mission – the first of three missions that will culminate with NASA landing the first woman and first person of color on the Moon. The Artemis mission, named after Apollo’s twin sister, will help NASA establish long-term exploration at the Moon in preparation for human missions to Mars. Friday’s journey from NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad was just four miles – but it took nearly 11 hours to move the 322-foot tall, 3....

The programming issue was not sanitising input, with two fields passed to a CGI handler being fed into system calls. The impacted models were its VPN and ATP series, and USG 100(W), 200, 500, 700, and Flex 50(W)/USG20(W)-VPN. At the time, Rapid7 said there were 15,000 affected models on the internet that Shodan had found. However, over the weekend, Shadowserver Foundation has boosted that number to over 20,800. “Most popular are USG20-VPN (10K IPs) and USG20W-VPN (5....

For 12Mbps, 25Mbps, 50Mbps plans, NBN is putting forward the same type of model it currently uses, where each plan has an allocation of CVC included – often around 6% of the marketed speed or lower – and would see excess capacity at AU$8 per 1Mbps per month to retailers. For plans at 100Mbps and above, a flat access fee each month is paid. While the flat price plans are set to increase at a rate of the consumer price index (CPI) plus 3% initially, and the greater of CPI or 3% later, which is higher than the pure CPI increases on the bundles, the ACCC believes excess usage charges will steer retailers towards the 100Mbps plan....

On Thursday, researchers from Cisco Talos published a report on Necro Python, a bot that has been in development since 2015. The botnet’s development progress was documented in January 2021 by both Check Point Research (CPR) and Netlab 360, tracked separately as FreakOut and Necro. The developer behind the Necro Python bot has made a number of changes to increase the power and versatility of the bot, including exploits for over 10 different web applications and the SMB protocol that are being weaponized in the bot’s recent campaigns....

With a pressing labor shortage and booming drive-thru and carryout demand over nearly two years of pandemic-induced recalibration, fast food has increasingly turned to technology to increase efficiencies and improve consistency and output. McDonald’s has been a leader in this arena, and just this week announced it was teaming up with IBM to create an automated drive-thru concept. Miso Robotics, an unusual success story in the crowd-funded technology space, is positioning itself as the go-to provider for automated cooking....

Voice Access is a complement to the existing Voice Typing functionality in Windows 11. While Voice Typing allows people to enter words into a text box using their voice, Voice Access goes further and allows testers to use voice commands to type and control their devices, enter numbers and text, and more. Like Voice Typing, Voice Access is a setting under Accessibility. Voice access uses on-device speech-recognition, and it works whether or not users have an internet connection....