The web hosting provider Hostinger has announced a new partnership with the business productivity app maker Flock to improve the efficiency and productivity of its customers with a new business email service.
As a result of the partnership, Hostinger customers will now be able to choose Flockmail as their email service as part of their hosting plans.
CEO of Hostinger International, Arnas Stuopelis explained how its new partnership with Flock will provide users with new online tools, saying:
“If you have the need for speed, then welcome aboard. We are very excited that our clients will have access to the extremely fast, reliable and easy-to-use Flockmail service for their personal and business needs. Clients appreciate when they are cared for, and this exciting partnership is another way for Hostinger to fulfil its value of helping customers to succeed by providing them with the best online tools to do so.”
Flockmail
According to Flock’s CEO and Co-Founder, Bhavin Turakhia, the company aims to replace user’s current email experience with its own Flockmail client. Hostinger customers will also have the ability to upgrade to premium plans on Flock cloud which offers state-of-the-art infrastructure, reliability and anti-spam protection.
Turakhia explained why its partnership with Hostinger is a big win for the web host’s customers, saying:
“The partnership between Flock and Hostinger is perfect for companies seeking a reliable business email service without costing them enormous amounts of money. This partnership will be a strategic win for both parties to empower their customers.”
At its inaugural Work in Progress user conference, Dropbox revealed its vision for the smart workspace alongside the launch of Dropbox Spaces.
The company views the smart workspace as a digital environment that brings all of a team’s content together alongside their favorite tools to help users cut through the clutter and focus on what matters.
Dropbox Spaces is part of the new Dropbox, which was announced earlier this year, and the new feature is an evolution of the shared folder into a collaborative workspace for teams. Dropbox has also utilized its machine intelligence platform, DBXi, to add new features to its service.
Dropbox CEO, Drew Houston explained how Dropbox Spaces was designed to eliminate clutter and distractions to help keep teams more focused on the task at hand in a blog post, saying:
“We’re building the smart workspace because we need technology that helps us quiet the noise, rather than contributing to it. This starts with the launch of Dropbox Spaces, which brings together your most important content and tools into one organized place, so you can stay focused and in sync with your team.”
New Dropbox desktop application
At its user conference, Dropbox announced its new desktop app, which was previously available in early access, is now generally available and will begin rolling out to users today. The new app includes several new features including file previews, Paper integration in the Dropbox file system and the ability to search across overview descriptions.
The company is even making it easier for users to search for images by using machine intelligence to allow them to find images by searching for the contents of the image. Dropbox Professional users will be able to use this new feature first but it also being developed for Dropbox Business.
Dropbox also announced a new “For You” tab in the Windows System tray and macOS menu bar that provides users with personalized suggestions for things such as meeting attachments, meeting note templates, team activity highlights and files and folders. Just like the company’s new image search feature, the tab utilizes machine learning and will become smarter over time as users interact with it more.
Dropbox Business admins will also receive a number of new updates including increased visibility into teams, members and their activity through the enterprise console.
Finally, Dropbox announced a strategic partnership and $5m investment in BetterCloud to give Dropbox teams advanced data protection capabilities and orchestration functionality.
No company has managed to make smart glasses that the average person would want to buy. Amazon’s Echo Frames could change that by making its Alexa digital assistant accessible from anywhere your smartphone has internet access. I checked them out at yesterday’s Amazon Devices event in Seattle and came away impressed.
The $180 Echo Frames are one of two devices that Amazon announced as “Day 1 Editions.” If you want to buy a pair (or the Echo Loop smart ring, which I didn’t get a chance to play with), you’ll need to request an invitation. Like the Echo Buds that were also announced yesterday, Frames depend on your smartphone to reach the internet. The factor that all three of these new mobile devices have in common is that they eliminate the need for you to pull your smartphone out of your pocket or purse to summon Alexa. That handily blunts one of the key advantages that Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri have had over Alexa.
Amazon
Amazon makes a valiant effort to make its Echo Frames look fashionable.
The Frames look like ordinary—if not especially fashionable—eyeglasses with very slightly thicker, spring-loaded arms. The springs relieve stress on the Frames when you put them on and take them off, just like most high-quality eyeglass frames). Amazon supplies them with clear plastic lenses, but there are instructions in the package that you can provide your optometrist, so as to fit them with prescription lenses. Unlike some other efforts at building smart glasses—Google Glass, for example—Echo Frames don’t have an integrated camera, and they don’t have an integrated display.
What they do have are two tiny speakers on each arm and a built-in near-field microphone for summoning Alexa, asking her questions, and giving her commands. The speakers are designed so that sound reaches the wearer’s ears, but doesn’t get loud enough that folks nearby can hear it. The room where the demos took place was quite loud, but I couldn’t hear the speakers while other reporters were getting their demonstrations of the Frames.
Michael Brown / IDG
The Echo Frames feature buttons on the underside of the right-hand arm: The button closest to the lenses mutes the microphone. The next button to the right increases volume, and the third button decreases volume. Tapping the side of the arm pauses music playback.
There are three buttons on the Frames’ right-hand arm: The button closest to the hinge mutes the microphone, the one behind that (toward your ear) increases the volume, and the third decreases the volume. Tapping the exterior of the right-hand arm pauses any music that might be streaming over the Bluetooth connection to your phone.
In addition to listening to music and dealing with Alexa, you can also use the Frames for hands-free phone calls and for sending and receiving text messages. The Frames will alert you to incoming texts and read them aloud to you. In order to avoid being inundated with unimportant notifications, the Frames app will allow you to create a VIP filter that will alert you only when messages from folks or apps on a whitelist arrive. You can elect to have it recite text messages from your family, your boss, and home security system, for instance, but ignore anything else. Ignored messages will remain in your inbox, of course; their arrival just won’t be announced in your ear.
An Amazon product manager told me the Frames are expected to deliver 14 hours of battery life with mixed use (phone calls, Alexa dialog, and music streaming) at a volume level of 60 percent. They’ll come with a magnetic charging cable that connects to a contact on the right-hand arm. I was impressed with how light the Frames were, but that will obviously change if you have them fitted with prescription lenses, depending on how thick your lenses are.
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One thing that many of the best HP laptops and best Chromebooks have in common is the ability to flip over backwards into a tablet mode. So, it’s no surprise to see HP introduce two more Chromebooks that do just that, with the budget-minded HP Chromebook x360 14b and 12b.
These new Chromebooks follow up on the Chromebook x360 14, with a similar design but pared down specs to bring the price lower. The new Chromebook x360 14b features a 14-inch touch display available in HD (720p) or full HD (1080p), while the Chromebook x360 12b has a 12-inch, HD+ display with a productivity-minded 4:3 aspect ratio.
Front and center on both new products is the 360-degree hinge that allows them to fold over into a number of different poses. This let’s the Chromebooks double as tablets with large touchscreens, and access to the Google Play store effectively makes them capable Android tablets. They also support active styluses for more accurate input.
The new Chromebooks are powered by Intel Celeron N4000 dual-core processors with the option for a quad-core Intel Pentium processor. They also have 4GB of RAM and 32GB to 128GB of eMMC storage.
While the specs are budget level, the laptops feature a metal design and slim bezels around the display. They also have B&O-tuned speakers, and include a one-year subscription to Google One.
A new stylus standard
An interesting new aspect to the Chromebook x360 14b and 12b is that they will take advantage of a new stylus standard called USI (Universal Stylus Initiative). This will allow for active styluses that work across multiple devices, including different device types beyond laptops. HP is just one of many companies making USI styluses, and the list includes Google and Intel.
For these new Chromebooks, HP has designed the HP Rechargeable USI Pen, which will be able to magnetically dock on the sides of the devices.
The Chromebook x360 14b will start at $379 (about £300, AU$550) while the 12b starts at $359 (about £290, AU$520), and both should be available this month in the US. HP’s stylus for these tablets will be sold separately and cost $69 (about £55, AU$100) when it launches in November. International availability information is forthcoming.
HP said Thursday that the company will begin shipping its first Universal Stylus Initiative-enabled Chromebooks later this month, offering the option of either a Celeron or a quad-core Pentium chip inside.
HP will offer the HP Chromebook x360 12b for $359 and the HP Chromebook x360 14b for $379. As the names suggest, they will be 12-inch and 14-inch Chromebooks, with up to full 1080p displays, with specific consumer bents: B&O-powered audio on the 14b, for example.
The Universal Stylus Initiative (USI) debuted Thursday as well, offering compatibility between various digital styluses. Essentially, the USI standard—supported by a dozen companies from Google, HP, Intel, and a host of stylus makers—will mean that you’ll be able to take your USI stylus and be assured that it will work on a range of various digital devices. HP will make its own pen, the HP Rechargeable USI Pen, which is expected to be available in November for a starting price of $69.99.
While HP says that both Chromebooks will have Pentium options, the only processor their spec sheets list is a Celeron, however. The spec sheets also list just one display option.
HP Chromebook x360 (12b-ca0010nr) basic specs:
Display: 12.0-inch (1,366 x 768) IPS, 220 nits
Processor: 1.1GHz N4000 Celeron
Memory: 4GB LPDDR4
Graphics: UHD620
Storage: 32GB eMMC
Wireless: 802.11ac/Bluetooth 5
Ports: 2 USB-C 3.1 (Power Delivery, DisplayPort), 1 USB-A 3.1 Gen 1, 3.5mm jack
Battery: 40.31Wh
Dimensions: 10.71 in. x 8.50 in. x 0.68 in.
Weight: 2.98 lb
Color: Ceramic white
HP
HP’s Chromebook x360 12b.
HP Chromebook x360 (14b-ca0010nr) basic specs:
Display: 12.0-inch (1,366 x 912) IPS, 235 nits
Processor: 1.1GHz N4000 Celeron
Memory: 4GB LPDDR4
Graphics: UHD600
Storage: 32GB eMMC
Wireless: 802.11ac/Bluetooth 5
Ports: 2 USB-C 3.1 (Power Delivery, DisplayPort), 1 USB-A 3.1 Gen 1, 3.5mm jack
Battery: 47Wh
Dimensions: 12.76 in. x 8.90 in. x 0.74 in.
Weight: 3.48 lb
Color: Ceramic white
HP
HP’s Chromeboo x360 14b.
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In is bi-annual software security advisory bundle for its Cisco IOS and IOS XE products, Cisco has disclosed more than a dozen high-severity vulnerabilities in its network automation software.
The networking giant is recommending that all admins review which versions of Cisco IOS and IOS XE their devices are running to make sure that they have been updated to versions that address the 13 separate flaws it discovered.
The 13 high-severity vulnerabilities disclosed by Cisco could give an attacker unauthorized access to an affected device, allow them to run a command-injection attack, or deplete a device’s resources which would lead to a denial of service.
The CVE-2019-12648 bug in the IOx application environment of IOS is the most severe and it affects large network operators who use the company’s 800 Series Industrial Integrated Services Routers and its 1000 Series Connected Grid Routers. Luckily though, the bug is contained within a guest operating system running on a virtual machine of an affected IOS device. However, it can be remedied by upgrading to a fixed version of IOS but if this is not possible, Cisco suggests that users disable the guest OS and it provided instructions on how to uninstall it in its advisory.
Layer 2 network traceroute utility
Cisco has also published an advisory regarding an issue in the Layer 2 network traceroute utility in IOS and IOS XE. Cisco Catalyst switches have this feature enabled by default and according to the company, public exploit code is already available for this issue.
The L2 traacerout server does not require authentication by design and this means that an attacker can collect loads of information about an affected device including the hostname, hardware model, configured interfaces and IP addresses, VLAN database, Mac address, Layer 2 filtering table and Cisco Discovery Protocol neighbor information.
In its advisory regarding this issue, Cisco explained that: “Reading this information from multiple switches in the network could allow an attacker to build a complete L2 topology map of that network.”
To fix the issue, users can disable their L2 tracerouter server manually or upgrade to a version of IOS or IOS XE that has it disabled by default. However, the later won’t be possible until later this year when Cisco releases updated versions of the software.
Curious about what Surface Laptop 3 will bring to the table? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
When the original Surface Laptop first came out more than two years old now, stuck with Windows 10 S Mode, it didn’t make that much sense compared to the rest of the Surface lineup. But, when the Surface Laptop 2 finally rolled out last year, Microsoft refined the formula enough and redefined the Surface Laptop image, and it became one of the best laptops on the market.
So, that leaves us thinking: what will the Surface Laptop 3 look like?
Beyond obvious upgrades to the internals, like Intel Whiskey Lake or Ice Lake processors, a higher resolution and Thunderbolt 3 connection are the highest on our wishlist. However, Microsoft would likely have to be willing to abandon its proprietary Surface connector.
Could it be the Surface Laptop 3 we’ve been anticipating? There’s a big chance. Still, until Microsoft releases any concrete information about the next generation Surface Laptop, all we can do is craft a wish list of what we want to see in the Surface Laptop 3.
Based on the past Surface Laptop releases, here are our Surface Laptop 3 speculations, predictions and rumors we heard through the grapevine. Be sure to keep this page bookmarked, and we’ll update it with any Surface Laptop 3 news or rumors comes our way.
Cut to the chase
What is it? The next Surface Laptop
When is it out? September 2019 at the earliest
What will it cost? Likely around $999 (about £780, AU$1,385)
Surface Laptop 3 release date
Unlike something like the Surface Pro 7, there have only been two Surface Laptop releases, and it’s a product line that has only been around for less than two years. So, we have less info to work with when guessing at a release window.
The original Surface Laptop came out in June 2017, along with the Surface Pro, but the Surface Laptop 2 saw an October 2018 release. So, while we might end up seeing the Surface Laptop 3 sometime in 2019, it’s hard to predict exactly what month it will get released.
Since Intel has already started shipping out the Ice Lake chips on August 1 – and with Microsoft gearing up for its October 2 event, we could see the company announcing the Surface Laptop 3 at the event and releasing it a few days or weeks later. Especially if that recently benchmarked device touting an Ice Lake chip is the next Surface Laptop.
This is all speculation, of course, so you should take it with salt. We’ll update this section as soon as we hear anything about the Surface Laptop 3 release date.
Surface Laptop 3 price
The original Surface Laptop came out with a $799 (around £560, AU$1,000) price tag, and an Intel Core m3 processor and Windows 10 S out of the box.
The Surface Laptop 2, on the other hand, considerably raised the price of entry, charging users $200 more at $999 (£979, AU$1,499). But, to be fair, this higher price point did come with full-fat Ultrabook processors in every configuration – not to mention, the full Windows 10 Home.
It’s highly likely that Microsoft will charge the same $999 (£979, AU$1,499) for the Surface Book 3, to keep it competitive with similar Ultrabooks, such as the Dell XPS 13.
What we want to see
The Surface Laptop 2 already improved so much on the Surface Laptop that it’s hard to know what else Microsoft could do to make it even better. Still, we’ve come up with a few things we’d like to see in the Surface Laptop 3, using our tech expertise as our guiding hand.
Faster processors The Surface Laptop 2 had vastly improved upon the CPUs on offer, moving from dual-core Kaby Lake chips to quad-core 8th-generation Kaby Lake Refresh processors. But, more speed is never a bad thing, and we’d love to see more power behind the Surface Laptop 3.
There are technically faster Ultrabook-class processors out already, touting Intel’s Whiskey Lake chips. However, those deliver such a small upgrade in performance, that it really isn’t worth upgrading.
At CES 2019, Intel announced its 10nm Ice Lake processors, promising to increase performance two fold in certain workloads. While Intel’s performance claims should be taken with a grain of salt, the gains to performance and battery life that a 10nm process would afford are still exciting. And, we’d love to see that in the next Surface Laptop.
Thunderbolt 3, please Now that Thunderbolt 3 is becoming a standard, Microsoft absolutely needs to include the technology in its next line of laptops. There are so many monitors, external hard drives and other peripherals are using Thunderbolt 3, and Microsoft needs to bring its port selection to the modern age – that Surface connection isn’t going to cut it for much longer.
Lucky for us, Microsoft has patented a new magnetic USB-C charger, that would have the best of both worlds. We just hope the technology is ready and on the Surface Laptop 3 before it hits the streets.
Freshen up the design The Surface Laptop 2 didn’t really change the look and feel of its predecessor beyond adding a new black color option. That isn’t really a complaint, more of a suggestion: we’d still like to see Microsoft offer a slimmer design.
And, it’s not like Microsoft isn’t pursuing thinner designs. Microsoft has patented a thinner Type Cover, with a touchpad built right into the printed circuit board. This could possibly lead to the Surface Pro 7 having a smaller footprint overall, but we’d also be interested to see if this design philosophy would carry over to other Surface devices.
Thinner laptops are always in demand, so a thinner and lighter Surface Laptop 3 is definitely possible.
However, we have seen a recent patent from Microsoft that could make the fur-coated design of the Surface Laptop 3 make a little more sense. The patent describes a touch-sensitive fabric, that could give the Surface Laptop 3 more touch controls on the chassis of the device, maybe for volume or brightness. A fuzzy Touch Bar, perhaps?
