Having reliable internet access is essential for businesses. When connectivity is lost, it can lead to decreased productivity, lost revenue, and even harm to your reputation. To avoid these challenges, a backup internet connection is a practical solution that ensures business continuity and peace of mind.

In this guide, we’ll explain why a backup connection is so important and provide clear, actionable advice on choosing the right option for your business needs. With the proper setup, you can stay connected and keep your critical operations running smoothly, no matter what.

What is connection backup?

A backup internet connection for business is a secondary internet service designed to step in automatically if your primary connection goes down. This ensures you maintain continuous internet access, allowing critical business operations to run smoothly. It’s a simple yet effective way to safeguard your business against unexpected connectivity issues.

Why do businesses need backup internet connection for business?

Downtime can be a significant challenge for any business. Beyond lost revenue, it can lead to reputational damage, frustrated customers, and missed deadlines. Outages can have even more serious consequences for industries like healthcare and finance.

A backup business internet connection is a practical solution beyond addressing major disasters. It can also help mitigate minor disruptions. If your primary connection faces frequent issues, a secondary connection ensures operations run smoothly while a long-term fix is arranged. This consistency keeps your critical workflows on track and boosts team morale and productivity by reducing interruptions.

By planning ahead with a backup connection, you can safeguard your business against unexpected challenges and maintain reliable connectivity—keeping your team focused and your customers satisfied.

How does a backup internet connection for business actually work?

Several technologies can provide backup internet connectivity. Here are some popular options:

Wireless Backup (4G/5G)

Wireless backup relies on cellular networks to provide internet connectivity when your primary connection goes down. When this happens, a wireless modem automatically activates to ensure uninterrupted access to the internet. This setup is often quicker to implement and may involve lower upfront costs, especially if you already have a business account with a service provider.

Typically, wireless backup operates over LTE networks, which use wireless data. However, speeds can vary depending on your carrier, network congestion, and the time of day. To ensure the best performance, consider consulting with your service provider to discuss coverage and network reliability in your area.

Satellite

Satellite internet can be a reliable backup when other connectivity options are unavailable, especially in remote locations with limited access. Still, its latency can pose challenges for real-time activities, such as video conferencing. Understanding these limitations can help you plan accordingly and explore solutions to minimize potential disruptions.

Backup internet connection for business benefits

A backup business internet connection is essential for maintaining reliability and minimizing financial losses during unexpected outages. It also helps protect your brand’s reputation and supports employee morale by ensuring uninterrupted critical workflows. To help you stay prepared, we’ve outlined some backup internet features to consider:

BenefitDescriptionCost savingsReduces lost revenue during outages.ProductivityEnables continued work despite primary connection loss.Customer SatisfactionProvides uninterrupted service, building customer trust.Brand ReputationMinimizes damage from connectivity issues.

Who should invest in a backup internet connection for business?

While all businesses can benefit from reliable internet connectivity, some industries depend on it to ensure seamless operations. For these organizations, a fixed wireless internet backup or similar solution is not just a recommendation—it’s a necessity. Their needs go beyond the capabilities of a standard internet plan. Here’s why backup connectivity is critical for these key sectors:

Healthcare: Hospitals, pharmacies, and other healthcare providers rely on real-time data and uninterrupted communication to deliver effective patient care. A backup internet connection is essential to avoid disruptions impacting critical services.

Financial Institutions: Banks and other financial organizations depend on consistent internet access to process transactions and maintain market operations. Downtime can halt these activities, leading to significant disruptions. A secondary connection ensures critical operations continue smoothly.

Online Retailers: E-commerce businesses require constant connectivity to process orders, manage inventory, secure payments, and coordinate shipping. Backup internet ensures operations are not interrupted, protecting revenue and customer trust. Additionally, POS systems depend on a stable internet to function effectively.

Government Agencies: Whether managing routine workflows or responding to emergencies, government agencies require reliable communication and access to real-time information. Backup internet solutions are vital to maintain public safety and operational efficiency, particularly for emergency and security services.

By implementing a reliable backup internet solution, businesses in these industries can safeguard critical operations, maintain productivity, and ensure they’re prepared to overcome unexpected connectivity challenges.

Choosing the right backup solution

Understanding your business needs is the first step to making informed decisions about backup internet. Analyze how daily operations rely on internet access and identify the speed required to maintain critical functions during an outage. Consider how disruptions affect employee productivity and ensure clear communication to minimize internal challenges and maintain team cohesion.

Key considerations for backup internet:

Budget: Balance cost and reliability. Avoid overspending while ensuring your business has the necessary level of protection.

Speed: Select a backup internet service with speeds that support essential operations during outages. Ensure the service can handle your critical online needs without disruption.

Reliability: Research providers’ uptime records to choose one with a consistent track record. Look into their service plans to ensure they meet your reliability requirements.

Scalability: Plan for growth by selecting a solution that can adapt to your business’s evolution. As businesses increasingly rely on online services, a scalable backup internet solution is crucial to staying ahead of future demands.

Carrier Diversity: Opt for a backup connection using a technology different from your primary service. This ensures redundant connectivity, creating resilience against single points of failure. A diverse setup can also help prevent disruptions to systems like VoIP phone services, ensuring seamless communication even during outages.

Stay connected, stay productive with optimum business

At Optimum Business, we understand that uninterrupted connectivity is vital to your success. A backup internet solution isn’t just a safeguard—it’s a business necessity. From protecting revenue and ensuring smooth operations to supporting your team’s productivity and maintaining customer satisfaction, a reliable connection backup makes all the difference.

Let us help you implement the right backup solution tailored to your needs. With Optimum Business, you can trust our expertise, reliable technology, and commitment to your success. Stay connected, stay productive, and stay ahead with Optimum Business.

Are you getting everything you need from your business Internet? Explore all of Optimum’s Business Internet plans.

FAQs

What are the key differences between connection backup and other redundancy measures?

Connection backup refers to having an alternate internet connection ready in case of service disruptions. Other redundancy measures include hardware and power sources, which can help prevent downtime during system failures.

How much does a connection backup system cost, and what factors influence the cost?

The cost of a connection backup system can vary depending on several factors, such as the type and size of your business, the location of your business, and the level of redundancy required. It’s best to consult with our experts at Optimum Business for a personalized quote tailored to your specific needs. Our team can also provide recommendations on cost-effective solutions that meet your budget while ensuring reliable connectivity.

What should businesses consider when choosing a connection backup provider?

When choosing a connection backup provider, businesses should consider factors such as the reliability and availability of their network, the level of customer support provided, and any additional features, resources, or services offered. Choosing a provider with a proven track record of delivering reliable connectivity solutions and excellent customer service is essential.

How can Optimum Business help organizations implement and maintain connection backup systems?

Optimum Business offers a range of connection backup solutions, including redundant internet connections and failover systems. Our team of experts can work with businesses to assess their needs and recommend the most suitable solution for their specific requirements. We also offer ongoing support and maintenance services to ensure that your connection backup system always remains functional and up-to-date.

To learn more, visit us here.

Source:: Computer World

Apple and Google now face regulatory probes in the ailing UK market, where the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has confirmed it intends to investigate both company’s mobile ecosystems under new digital market laws. This is separate from an ongoing UK probe into mobile browsers and cloud gaming that also affects the two companies.

The CMA intends to look into the operating systems, app stores, and web browsers of Apple and Google to see whether they should be given ‘Strategic Market Status.” If they meet that grade, they will be subject to rules dictated by the CMA. Those dictates could extend further even than European demands have gone under the Digital Markets Act, with huge fines for any non-compliance.

For example, the UK regulator might be able to force Apple and Google to open up access to key functionality for use by app developers or force Apple to open up app distribution to third-party services on its platforms.

What will the investigation explore?

The CMA plans to look at:

The extent of competition between and within mobile ecosystems and what barriers prevent rivals from offering products and services on Apple’s and Google’s platforms.

Possible leveraging of Apple’s and Google’s market power to favor their own apps and services.

Potential exploitative conduct, such as forcing “unfair” terms and conditions on developers.

The concern is that Apple and Google together dominate the mobile industry, which means they “exert considerable influence over much of the content, services and technological development provided on a mobile device,” the CMA said.

That’s true, of course, as the big US tech success stories build the operating systems developers use to provide apps and services on the platforms. Given the extensive quantity of personal data gathered by mobile devices, the privacy argument both companies will use in their defense is a viable one.

What the CMA wants

Newly appointed CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said: “The operating systems, apps and browsers installed on our phones and tablet devices act as our gateway into the digital world, whether that is communicating with our friends and loved ones, buying from businesses or accessing creative content. More competitive mobile ecosystems could foster new innovations and new opportunities across a range of services that millions of people use, be they app stores, browsers or operating systems.”

In the fantasy economics at play here, the CMA argues that better competition could “boost growth” in the UK, enabling UK businesses to offer “new and innovative types of product and services on Apple’s and Google’s platforms” and introduce innovative new products and services.

Saying the quiet part out loud, the regulator suggests these amazing innovations could include AI products and services and new types of “super apps” accessed through a mobile browser. The latter is likely music to the ears of Elon Musk, who has long dreamed of turning X into such a service. It must also be noted that AI is certainly part of the intention here; this likely ends with a full-front battle regarding user data privacy.

What Apple said

Apple, of course, doesn’t agree that the ecosystem it created from scratch, armed with nothing but a handful of iMacs and a Unix-based operating system is anti-competitive. “Apple believes in thriving and dynamic markets where innovation can flourish,” the company said. 

Not for the first time, Apple also argued (correctly) that it faces, “competition in every segment and jurisdiction where we operate, and our focus is always the trust of our users.” 

It took pains to note that its platform-based ecosystem delivers big benefits to the UK’s anemic economy. “In the UK alone, the iOS app economy supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and makes it possible for developers big and small to reach users on a trusted platform,” the company said.

Apple CEO Tim Cook made similar arguments when he visited the UK to meet King Charles and speak to the incumbent Prime Minister. The implication, of course, is that regulations that damage the trust between consumers and the brand will threaten existing digital business and further harm consumers and the UK economy. Some might see this as a warning against deep state interference in something as complex as OS development. 

Perhaps dialog will help? “We will continue to engage constructively with the CMA as their work on this matter progresses,” the Apple statement said.

We’ll see how it goes.

What happens next?

The CMA now intends to speak with a range of stakeholders, including device manufacturers, software developers and user groups. It also intends to gather evidence from Apple and Google before reaching a decision by the end of October 2025. “Anyone with an interest in these investigations is invited to comment until Wednesday 12 February,” the CMA said.

If that’s you, you can provide your own insights to the UK regulator via this website.

With investigations extending across its business in almost every key market, Apple will certainly hope for support from the home nation it has delivered so much economic benefit to, as the alternative will be fundamental changes in its business. The latter, I feel, has become inevitable at this point, and I’d argue that the company should switch to establish new business models that it can control before it is forced to adapt to business structures over which it has none.

It’s noteworthy that newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump s already pushing back on European efforts to regulate US tech firms. “These are American companies whether you like it or not,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “They shouldn’t be doing that. That’s, as far as I’m concerned, a form of taxation. We have some very big complaints with the EU.”

I expect the UK should anticipate slaps with the same stick.

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, and MeWe. 

Source:: Computer World

By Thomas Macaulay Donald Trump’s big AI announcement has turned heads on both sides of the Atlantic. Trump revealed this week that OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle have formed a joint venture — called Stargate — that will invest $500bn in AI infrastructure. The companies said $100bn of the funding was available immediately. The rest would be deployed over the next four years. Trump billed Stargate as “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history.” He added that the project would ensure “the future of technology” is in the US. Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, had another bold prediction. He said the…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Deepti Pathak Have you ever encountered “TB” in a text and wondered what it means?  Abbreviations like these…
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By Deepti Pathak Have you ever encountered “OPT” on social media and wondered what it means? You’re not alone!…
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By Amanda Kavanagh Every two years for the last decade, the World Economic Forum has released a comprehensive, and oft cited report proffering insights into the changing nature of the jobs economy. The latest Future of Jobs Report, which covers 2025–2030, combines the viewpoints of more than 1,000 prominent international businesses, who together account for over 14 million workers in 22 sector clusters and 55 economies worldwide. Here are a few key takeaways: Gen AI & robots According to the report, by 2030, 60% of employers anticipate that broadening digital access will revolutionise their industry. 5 jobs to discover this week Software Engineer,…This story continues at The Next Web

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By Siôn Geschwindt Ah, quantum computing… that moonshot technology full of potential, full of promise — and jam-packed with enough jargon to make the average person cry.  Qubits, entanglement, superposition, trapped-ions, Schrödinger’s cat. These terms sound strange because the world of quantum mechanics — where things can exist in multiple states at once — is strange.  And that’s why I want you to bear with me while I relay this latest piece of news from the buzzing quantum computing startup scene.  ZuriQ, a spin-out from ETH Zurich in Switzerland, has raised $4.2mn to commercialise a new chip architecture that could dramatically increase the…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

Apple’s innovative self-branded credit card, Apple Card, was expected to overturn the existing retail banking industry and transform relationships between bankers and customers. Equipped with generous benefits and unique integration between Apple’s ecosystem and a user’s financial relationships, the card quickly generated many thousands of US users after its 2019 introduction.

With such a great start, how could it fail? And yet, somehow it found a way. 

To be fair, the six-year-old card hasn’t really failed. It still exists and many enjoy its perks and benefits, including cash-back deals and a savings account offering some of the best interest your money can buy. They enjoy it very much. In fact, the Apple Card ranks highest in customer satisfaction among co-brand credit cards, according to JD Power.

But all is not well

Burned by its foray into retail banking during a period of global instability and pandemic, Apple Card partner Goldman Sachs wants out, and while it and Apple will continue working together for the duration of the existing contract, the open secret is that the iPhone maker is seeking a new card partner. That the two partners got fined $89 million for negligence and mismanagement by the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau didn’t help. As recently as last week, Goldman Sachs’ CEO warned that the arrangement between the two firms could end early, so it looks as if that company is eyeing a rapid exit from the deal.

Right now, Apple is reportedly in conversation with Barclays on the matter, Reuters claims. Barclays is no stranger to taking on existing credit card services; it recently replaced Goldman Sachs as credit card partner for General Motors. Talks between Apple and JP Morgan Chase and Synchrony Financial have also been alleged in recent months.

Despite these chats, nothing has been announced, which suggests Apple is encountering challenges finding a new partner. 

What’s in the way?

Holiday season speculation told us potential retail banking partners just don’t want to deliver on the features and benefits Apple Card currently provides. 

I think Apple is at a disadvantage here. It’s important when thinking about the nature of those closed-door negotiations to ponder the power balance in these chats. After all, while Apple drives legendarily hard bargains, when it comes to negotiation, banks are banks, and they know that when it comes to real unearned wealth creation, the financial system they own always works in their favor.

After all, when it doesn’t, we bail them out.

Look at it this way, while Apple has to sell and invent real products and services to make its money, banks just need to increase property values to charge interest on mortgage money they notionally lend which doesn’t actually exist. A little like artificially manipulated crypto value spikes, it’s a lot easier to create scarcity than to meet it with what people need. In this scenario, the banks have the upper hand.

There’s a certain irony to that. When it was introduced, Apple Card posed a titan’s challenge to the industry. 

Eating with the enemy

The features, including app-driven features, were second to none. The business proposition tilted hard toward customer convenience, and Apple’s foray into the financial system (in conjunction with even deeper stabs at retail banking’s most profitable markets by other challenge banks) arguably helped force established financial institutions to get their act together and improve their customer offerings. 

(If that proposition were correct, you’d see evidence of it — and you can find that evidence in all the new features suddenly added to banking apps and services after Apple Card arrived.)

Most people deeply resent the banking industry. Many millions continue to experience hardships following the 2008 crash. The idea that Apple Card and other challenge banks would somehow undermine the status quo remains quite attractive.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be happening. Instead, established banking services (such as Barclays) will now do the Big Fish, Little Fish predator tango and assimilate the competitor, neutralizing the threat.

Was Apple Card too good? It was so good an established vendor may yet buy it, you might say.

If that happens, Apple Card customers will be OK. (They’ll also be OK if the card fades away as their interests will be protected.) Apple will still make a profit. But the challenge will be defanged, and the industry will carry on its own sweet way — while occasionally raising arguments about competition when vendors like Apple invent something they want to extract wealth from, such as Apple Pay.

“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded,” as Leonard Cohen once sang. “That’s how it goes.”

Even at Apple.

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, and MeWe. 

Source:: Computer World

By Thomas Macaulay A new season of the “Champions League of Tech” has begun with the return of TECH5 — Europe’s hottest scaleup contest. Over the next five months, TECH5 will showcase the continent’s future stars. The competition comes to a climax on June 19-20, when the 2025 winners are announced on the main stage of TNW Conference. Applications for the tournament opened this week. Promising scaleups from across the continent have been invited to submit their entries here. A range of prizes are at stake, from media coverage to VIP passes to TNW Conference. Companies need to act fast though — the…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Deepti Pathak Texting is full of short forms and abbreviations that keep conversations quick and fun, and people…
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If you’re a Microsoft 365 subscriber with a Personal or Family subscription, Microsoft just flipped a switch and activated Copilot AI features for your account. It’s a new part of your subscription, along with that 1TB of OneDrive storage and access to Office apps like Word and Excel. But there are some big catches — including a price hike and some limits.

Microsoft’s latest changes follow in Google’s footsteps, with AI features appearing in the standard subscription for much less than you’d pay for those AI features separately — but with the standard subscription price also going up at the same time.

Let’s dive into how Microsoft just transformed some of the world’s most popular productivity apps, what you can do now — and how you can avoid paying more.

Want to keep track of the latest Windows and Office developments in just a few minutes each week? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. Plus, get free Windows Field Guide downloads as a bonus when you sign up!

How Copilot works in Microsoft 365 plans

First things first, the basics: Microsoft announced that all Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family plans now include Copilot features as of Jan. 16 in “most markets worldwide.” This won’t affect you when using a Microsoft 365 plan provided by a workplace — businesses still have to pay separately for AI features — but it will affect your individual plans. And plenty of professionals do pay for their own Microsoft 365 subscriptions. (I should know; I’m one of them!)

In other words, if you pay for Microsoft 365 and use apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook, you’ll now find the Copilot button popping up in these applications. Previously, you had to pay $20 per month for a Copilot Pro subscription to unlock these features.

Here’s the first big catch: The newly expanded paid 365 plans don’t give you unlimited access to Microsoft’s AI features. Instead, you get a monthly allotment of credits that Microsoft says “…should be enough for most subscribers.” In practice, that appears to be 60 credits per month — meaning you can use AI features 60 times per month. After that, you’ll need to pay for a $20-per-month Copilot Pro subscription to keep using those AI features.

You’ll see an informational pop-up window the first time you open an app like Word.Chris Hoffman, IDG

Note: These AI credits are actually shared across various other Microsoft apps — including for AI image generation in Designer, Paint, and Photos and text-editing work in Notepad. They’re not just for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Plus, again, Microsoft is raising its 365 subscription prices, with Copilot bundled into the mix. They’re going up by $3 per month in the US, though the exact price increase will vary by country. For the yearly plans in the US, Microsoft 365 Family goes from $100 to $130 per year, and Microsoft 365 Personal goes from $70 to $100 per year.

This is the first time Microsoft has raised prices since launching the subscription service — originally called Office 365 — back in 2013. While it’s true that Microsoft is using these AI features as a way to hike prices, these subscriptions were overdue for a price increase anyway, and it’s nice to at least get something out of it. (In my opinion, between the 1TB of OneDrive storage and access to Office apps, it’s still a good value.)

It’s worth noting that this Copilot change is only for Microsoft 365 plans. If you buy a more traditional “one-time purchase” version of Office like Office 2024, your setup isn’t changing — and you won’t have access to these newer AI features.

Using Copilot AI in Microsoft 365 apps

With the new adjustments in place, Copilot AI is easy to find in Office apps: You’ll find a Copilot icon on the ribbon, or you can also select some text and click the little Copilot icon that appears next to it, or just press Alt+i. Then you can prompt Copilot to write or rewrite text in a document for you. You could also ask it questions about the document you’re viewing from the Copilot sidebar.

For more information on exactly how Copilot works in these Office apps, check out my Copilot Pro review from last year. The new built-in Copilot features are exactly the same as what you get with Copilot Pro; the only difference is that you’re limited to 60 uses per month in the 365 setup.

If you run out of credits, Microsoft will encourage you to upgrade to Copilot Pro. In a way, then, these AI features are a bit of a “trial” for Copilot Pro.

To check how many credits you have left, you can click the little menu icon in the Copilot sidebar in an Office app and then click “AI credit balance.” This will take you to your Microsoft 365 account subscription page, where you can see a running balance of the AI credits you’ve used.

Your AI credit balance is just a few clicks away.Chris Hoffman, IDG

Generating images with Microsoft Designer

The same credit system also applies to Microsoft Designer, which is a useful AI image-generation tool. (At our newsletter-focused small business The Intelligence, we use Microsoft Designer to create some feature image illustrations for our articles — we’re writers, not visual artists!)

That means with any paid Personal or Family 365 plan, you can opt to use your 60 monthly AI image credits directly within Designer, too. This is actually quite a downgrade: Previously, everyone got 15 credits per day for AI image generations. Now, subscribers get a total of 60 credits per month, while free accounts only get 15 credits per month.

If you need more than that, you can upgrade to the $20-a-month Copilot Pro plan, which gives you many more AI image generations in Designer and beyond. (Microsoft says you get “at least 10x more credits” for Designer with Copilot Pro, compared to the 15-credits-per-month free setup — so roughly 150 credits per month, then, compared to the 60 monthly credits in the base 365 subscription.)

AI tools are expensive to create and operate, and companies have lost a lot of money on them. It’s no surprise to see many AI tools offering less for free and looking for more payment from their users; that’s what’s happening here.

How to avoid the AI features (and costs) entirely

There are ways to avoid the Microsoft 365 subscription price increases, if you don’t anticipate using them and don’t want to pay for them. (The price increase doesn’t take effect until your next subscription renewal, by the way.)

If you already have a Microsoft 365 subscription, you can keep your old subscription price and opt out of the AI features “for a limited time.” Microsoft says you can switch by canceling your subscription and choosing one of the “Classic” plans during the cancelation process. Here are Microsoft’s instructions.

You could also buy “perpetual licenses” of Office instead of using the more prominently offered subscriptions. In other words, with a one-time purchase of Office 2024, you could use Office for a few years for that one-time purchase price. It’s not as good a deal as it sounds — that one-time purchase price will only get you access to Office apps like Word and Excel on a single computer, and you won’t have access to the 1TB of OneDrive storage. (Plus, while your license will be good in perpetuity, Microsoft will stop delivering security updates for Office 2024 in October 2029.)

You can also buy Microsoft 365 subscription keys from other retailers. Without getting into the weeds too far here, it’s worth noting that days after Microsoft implemented the subscription price increase, Amazon is still selling Microsoft 365 Personal subscriptions for $70 and Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions for $100 — the old prices. But these are the standard plans and include those AI features. That’s a bargain.

Of course, you could also turn to other office suites — the web-based Google Docs, the open-source LibreOffice, or the Apple-focused iWork suite — but Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are the business standard for a reason. And even with these AI-adding price increases, getting that 1TB of OneDrive storage at those prices is still a great deal.

Want more insights and helpful tips? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter! You’ll also get three new things to try every Friday and free copies of Paul Thurrott’s Windows Field Guides as a special welcome gift.

Source:: Computer World

By Deepti Pathak In today’s texting and social media world, abbreviations and slang make conversations quicker and easier. One…
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Today’s AI models do a poor job of providing accurate information about world history, according to a new report from the Austrian research institute Complexity Science Hub (CSH).

In an experiment, OpenAI’s GPT-4, Meta’s Llama, and Google’s Gemini were asked to answer yes or no to historical questions — and only 46% of the answers were correct. GPT-4, for example, answered “yes” to the question of whether Ancient Egypt had a standing army, likely because the AI model chose to extrapolate data from other empires such as Persia.

“If you are told A and B 100 times and C one time, and then asked a question about C, you might just remember A and B and try to extrapolate from that,” researcher Maria del Rio-Chanona told Techcrunch.

According to the researchers, AI models have more difficulty providing accurate information about some regions than others, including sub-Saharan Africa.

Source:: Computer World

By Siôn Geschwindt Google DeepMind spinoff Isomorphic Labs expects testing on its first AI-designed drugs to begin this year, as tech startups race to turn algorithmic magic into actual treatments. “We’ll hopefully have some AI-designed drugs in clinical trials by the end of the year,” the firm’s Nobel Prize-winning CEO Demis Hassabis told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. “That’s the plan.”   The potential of AI-powered drug discovery is huge. Instead of spending years or even decades testing chemicals by hand, machine learning algorithms can sift through mountains of data to spot patterns and predict which molecules could…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Hisan Kidwai If you have an iPhone or an Android flagship, along with all the smart accessories, charging…
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Microsoft began 2025 with a hefty patch release this month, addressing eight zero-days with 159 patches for Windows, Microsoft Office and Visual Studio. Both Windows and Microsoft Office have “Patch Now” recommendations (with no browser or Exchange patches) for January.

Microsoft also released a significant servicing stack update (SSU) that changes how desktop and server platforms are updated, requiring additional testing on how MSI Installer, MSIX and AppX packages are installed, updated, and uninstalled. 

To navigate these changes, the Readiness team has provided this useful infographic detailing the risks of deploying the updates.

Known issues 

Readiness worked with both Citrix and Microsoft to detail the more serious update issues affecting enterprise desktops, including:

Windows 10/11: Following the installation of the October 2024 security update, some customers report that theOpenSSH (Open Secure Shell) service fails to start, preventing SSH connections. The service fails without detailed logging; manual intervention is required to run the sshd.exe process. Microsoft is investigating the issue with no (as of now) published schedule for either mitigations or a resolution.

Citrix reported significant issues with its Session Recording Agent (SRA), causing the January update to fail to complete successfully. Microsoft published a security bulletin (KB5050009) that says: “Affected devices might initially download and apply the January 2025 Windows security update correctly, such as via the Windows Update page in Settings.” Once this situation occurs, however, the update process stops and proceeds to rollback to the original state.

In short, if you have the Citrix SRA installed, your device was (likely) not updated this month.

Major revisions

For this Patch Tuesday, we have the following revisions to previously released updates:

CVE-2025-21311: Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability. Microsoft has released an updated group policy (SkuSiPolicy.p7b) to better handle security related issues with VBS scripts included in the knowledge note, “Guidance for blocking rollback of Virtualization-based Security (VBS)”.

CVE-2025-21308: Windows Themes Spoofing Vulnerability. Microsoft recommends disabling NTLM for desktop systems to address this vulnerability. Guidance on the  process can be found here: Restrict NTLM: Outgoing NTLM traffic to remote servers.

Microsoft also released CVE-2025-21224 to address two memory related security vulnerabilities in the legacy line printer daemon (LPD), a Windows feature that has been deprecated for 15 years. I can’t see things improving for these print-related functions (given the problems we’ve seen for the past decade). Maybe now is the time to start removing these legacy features from your platform.

Windows lifecycle and enforcement updates

The following Microsoft products will be retired this year:

Microsoft Genomics: Jan. 6, 2025

Visual Studio App Center: March 31, 2025

SAP HANA Large Instances (HLI): June 30, 2025

Of course, we don’t need to mention the elephant in the room. Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 in October.

Each month, we analyze Microsoft’s updates across key product families — Windows, Office, and developer tools — to help you prioritize patching efforts. This prescriptive, actionable, guidance is based on assessing a large application portfolio and a detailed analysis of the Microsoft patches and their potential impact on the Windows platforms and apps.

For this release cycle from Microsoft, we have grouped the critical updates and required testing efforts into different functional areas including:

Remote desktop

January has a heavy focus on Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) and network protocols, with the following testing guidance:

RD Gateway Connections: Ensure RD Gateway (RDG) continues to facilitate both UDP and TCP traffic seamlessly without performance degradation. Try disconnecting RDG from an existing/established connection.

VPN, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth Scenarios: test end-to-end configurations and nearby sharing functionality.

DNS Management for Operators: Verify that users in the “Network Configuration Operators” group can manage DNS client settings effortlessly.

Local Windows file system and storage

File system and storage components also get minor updates. Desktop and server file system testing efforts should focus on:

Offline Files and Mapped Drives: Test mapped network drives under both online and offline conditions. Pay close attention to Sync Center status updates.

BitLocker: Validate drive locking and unlocking, BitLocker-native boot scenarios, and post-hibernation states with BitLocker enabled.

Virtualization and Microsoft Hyper-V

Hyper-V and virtual machines receive lightweight updates:

Traffic Testing: Install the Hyper-V feature and restart systems. Monitor network performance and ensure no regressions in virtual network traffic or virtual machine management.

Security and authentication

Key areas for security-related testing include:

Digest Authentication Stress Testing: Simulate heavy loads while using Digest authentication to uncover potential issues.

SPNEGO Negotiations: Verify Secure Negotiation Protocol (SPNEGO) functionalities in cross-domain or multi-forest Active Directory setups.

Authentication Scenarios: Test applications relying on LSASS processes and ensure that protocols like Kerberos, NTLM, and certificate-based authentication remain stable under load.

Other critical updates

There are some additional testing priorities for this release:

App Deployment Scenarios: Install and update MSIX/Appx packages with and without packaged services, confirming admin-only requirements for updates.

WebSocket Connections: Establish and monitor secure WebSocket connections, ensuring proper encryption and handshake results.

Graphics and Themes: Test GDI+-based apps and workflows involving theme files to ensure UI elements render correctly across different view modes. Some suggestions include foreign language applications that rely on Input Method Editors (IMEs).

January’s updates maintain a medium-risk profile for most systems, but testing remains essential — especially for networking, authentication, and file system scenarios. We recommend prioritizing remote network traffic validation, with light testing for storage and virtualization environments. If you have a large MSIX/Appx package portfolio, there’s a lot of work to do to ensure that your package installs, updates and uninstalls successfully.

Each month, we break down the update cycle into product families (as defined by Microsoft) with the following basic groupings: 

Browsers (Microsoft IE and Edge) 

Microsoft Windows (both desktop and server) 

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server 

Microsoft Developer Tools (Visual Studio and .NET)

Adobe (if you get this far) 

Browsers

There were no Microsoft browser updates for Patch Tuesday this month. Expect Chromium updates that will affect Microsoft Edge in the coming week. (You can find the enterprise release schedule for Chromium here.)

Microsoft Windows

This is a pretty large update for the Windows ecosystem, with 124 patches for both desktops and servers, covering over 50 product/feature groups. We’ve highlighted some of the major areas of interest:

Fax/Telephony

MSI/AppX/Installer and the Windows update mechanisms

Windows COM/DCOM/OLE

Networking, Remote Desktop

Kerberos, Digital Certificates, BitLocker, Windows Boot Manager

Windows graphics (GDI) and Kernel drivers

Unfortunately, Windows security vulnerabilities CVE-2025-21275 and CVE-2025-21308 both affect core application functionality and have been publicly disclosed. Add these Windows updates to your “Patch Now” release schedule.

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office gets three critical updates, and a further 17 patches rated important. Unusually, three Microsoft Office updates affecting Microsoft Access fall into the zero-day category with CVE-2025-21366, CVE-2025-21395 and CVE-2025-21186 publicly disclosed. Add these Microsoft updates to your “Patch Now” calendar.

Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server

There were no updates from Microsoft for SQL Server or Microsoft Exchange servers this month. 

Microsoft Developer Tools (Visual Studio and .NET)

Microsoft has released seven updates rated as important affecting Microsoft .NET and Visual Studio. Given the urgent attention required for Office and Windows this month, you can add these standard, low-profile patches to your standard developer release schedule. 

Adobe and third-party updates

No Adobe related patches were released by Microsoft this month. However, two third-party, development related updates were published; they affect GitHub (CVE-2024-50338) and CERT CC patch (CVE-2024-7344). Both updates can be added to the standard developer release schedule.

Source:: Computer World

By Siôn Geschwindt Stuttgart, Germany-based Sereact has secured €25mn to advance its embodied AI software that enables robots to carry out tasks they were never trained to do.  “With our technology, robots act situationally rather than following rigidly programmed sequences. They adapt to dynamic tasks in real-time, enabling an unprecedented level of autonomy,” said Ralf Gulde, CEO and co-founder of Sereact (short for “sense, reason, act”). Early Spotify and Klarna-backer Creandum led the Series A round. Existing investors Point Nine and Air Street Capital also chipped in as did several prominent angel investors. These include former Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg, ex-DeepMind…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Hisan Kidwai It’s no secret that YouTube has long been the biggest digital library, housing songs, videos, and…
The post 3 Easy Ways to Download YouTube Videos to WAV appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

In a few years, every new employee entering the workforce will already have become accustomed to using AI to solve problems and help with tasks – and they’re going to want the same tools at work as those they use at home. That’s the important take-away from new research that shows about a quarter of US teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork.

We know, because we’ve seen it already; once powerful technologies take hold in the school room, they tend to proliferate across business markets later. We’ve seen it happen before with the Mac, the PC, iPad, and iPhone. We’ve seen it happen in the evolution of photo-sharing sites and social media. 

We’re going to keep seeing this happen in the future.  You don’t have to like it, but you have to accept that once a technology reaches critical mass in the schoolroom, it appears in business later.

Tomorrow’s world

Tomorrow’s employees have grown up with that tech, meaning Gen Z is also set to be Generation AI. This is going to become increasingly important to business users, who will need to make the right investments today to ensure they have appropriate tech (including experience and policy) in place. 

This is something that’s evidently important to device, service, and operating system vendors, as each and every one of them is now engaged in a rapid sprint to deploy AI in their offerings. Apple, of course, is a little unique in that it is attempting to weave privacy into the systems it provides, including Apple Intelligence, something that will be seen as of increasing importance to business users as they seek to lock down their information, both in competitive terms and also to meet data protection requirements. 

For digital natives, privacy is a currency they want to control

It’s interesting to see how Generation Z sees privacy. These digital natives want to control the digital narrative concerning their lives, have grown up with the internet, and are more likely to digest information in video than written form. 

They also understand how things work. That means they know about the privacy settings on their devices and are more likely than older generations to use them.  They are prepared to share personal information in exchange for personalized services, but are concerned about misuse, abuse, or tracking of them or their data — and don’t have much faith in the ability of companies to protect that information. 

This implies that, when they begin their working lives, they will prefer workplace solutions that provide both convenience and privacy. But as the digital transformation experience accelerated by the iPhone-led smartphone revolution showed, they will still use AI — even if companies don’t approve the services they prefer.  

This is why it is important today to test and rate existing AI systems against your own business security and privacy policies.

Invest in infrastructure

By the time your next generational employee intake takes place, you’ll want to ensure the use of AI across your organization has been tested, verified, and has become mature. Otherwise (and not for the first time), current generations will be leaving it to subsequent ones to figure out how to shave the corners off the wheel, giving those who’ve already figured out how to build better roads for those circular objects the edge when it comes to supporting any kind of customer journey. 

It remains to be seen the extent to which AI will either unleash the creativity and innovation its proponents promise us, or confine human endeavor to an Overton window defined by the people who build the AI systems we use. But we already seem unable to leave the vehicle. 

There is one more thing for business users planning their AI deployments to consider, and that’s Apple. You see, despite Siri, Apple already has a strong grip on Generation Z — its market share among US teens continues to grow. They like Apple and its services.

While they don’t see Apple Intelligence as a particularly big draw yet, in the fast-moving long game of AI deployment, so long as Apple focuses on things they care about — such as privacy — and delivers AI that does what it says it does, the company’s resurgence in enterprise markets will continue. That means demand for Apple in the workplace will continue to grow, and it will remain essential to open things up with employee choice schemes and consider Mac, iPad, and iPhone deployments across US business. 

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, and MeWe. 

Source:: Computer World

By Thomas Macaulay A startup called Scenexus has unveiled plans to build digital twins of cities around the world. A spin-off from Dutch research organisation TNO, Scenexus launched this week with a new platform for urban planning. The software blends multiple datasets to clone entire cities and regions. Planners and engineers then use the replicas to precisely analyse the impacts of their ideas. According to Scenexus, the platform can accelerate their assessments from days to just minutes. They can then forecast the social, environmental, and economic impacts of developments. A host of factors can be reviewed, from traffic and safety to financial growth…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web