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Problems with the messaging service, owned by Meta, started around 8am BST, preventing users from sending and receiving messages. Users were unable to send messages, and according to DownDetector, reports of WhatsApp being down were made across North America (including the US and Canada), Europe (including the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy), along with reports it was down in Israel, India, Australia, and many other countries around the globe....

Branded bugs like Heartbleed from 2014 are a bit passé but the Windows 10 PrintNightmare bugs appear to be an apt choice: Microsoft released fixes in July and August and, just after its August 10 Patch Tuesday change to the Print Spooler service, it’s disclosed yet another print spooler bug. This one concerns a Windows Print Spooler remote code execution vulnerability, tagged as CVE-2021-36958. SEE: Malware developers turn to ’exotic’ programming languages to thwart researchers “A remote code execution vulnerability exists when the Windows Print Spooler service improperly performs privileged file operations....

One of the most powerful tools in Windows 10 is its built-in virtualization platform, Hyper-V. Before you can use Hyper-V, you have to enable the feature using this Control Panel dialog box. Using Hyper-V, you can create a virtual machine and use it for evaluating software and services without risking the integrity or stability of your “real” PC. Creating a new virtual PC is easy, but first you have to turn on the Hyper-V feature....

For those who like using the Windows 11 widget board, Spotify’s arrival as a widget could be good news and follows Meta’s Messenger in becoming the first third-party widget to come to Windows 11’s widget board. Also: How to change your username in Windows 11 The widget revival can be put in part down to Apple’s take on the concept since iOS 14. Google abandoned widgets in Android years ago, but it recently released Gmail, Chrome, Search, Maps, Drive, and Google News widgets for iOS 16....

“Eventually, our software should be so fundamentally secure that customers never even worry about it,” wrote Gates. It’s a grand ambition, and despite years of work, it is not one that any software has really achieved yet. And even as engineers try to improve their products, a new wave of security threats have appeared. “I think it was hard for anyone at the time – even in Bill Gates’ grand vision – to see we would have sophisticated state-sponsored hackers breaking those SWIFT banking system codes, people flattening oil production by wiping hard-drives....

The analyst predicts that a 30% increase in developer talent in Africa, which has in recent years seen an influx of venture capital funding, will see the region evolve into a software development powerhouse rivalling Asia by 2026. A number of African nations have established innovation hubs in an effort to attract coders and tech talent to the region, and draw investment from overseas. SEE: Generative AI, autonomic systems, hyperautomation and more top Gartner list of top tech trends in 2022 This includes Kenya’s $1 billion tech ecosystem – dubbed ‘Silicon Savannah’ – which continues to attract entrepreneurs, investors and technologists from Africa and further afield....

Eleven years ago next month, we lost two industry giants. One of them would have been 80 years old today. It is undeniable that Steve Jobs brought us innovation and iconic products like the world had never seen, as well as a cult following of consumers and end users that mythologized him. The likes of which will probably never be seen again. At the time of Jobs’ passing, I paid my respects and acknowledged his influence, like many in this industry, despite my documented differences with the man and his company, But the “magical” products that Apple and Steve Jobs – as well as many other companies created owe just about everything we know and write about in modern computing as it exists today to Dennis Ritchie, who passed away on October 12, 2011, at the age of 70....

The 6.73-inch Xiaomi 12 Pro – which, along with the 6.28-inch Xiaomi 12, is due to launch in the UK in April – will start at $999 for a configuration with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. My review unit was a 12GB/256GB model, which will cost £1,049 in the UK (pre-orders from 1 April, official sales from 15 April). The Xiaomi 12 Pro has a fairly minimalist design....

The Apple MacBook Air is an 11.6" device from 2015. Yes, it will not perform as well as the modern MacBook Air ranges that contain Apple’s custom processors and improved displays & graphics, but for $282 – a discount of 68% or $617 on a typical $899 RRP – this deal should still be considered. When you find an Apple MacBook Air for less than 300 bucks, there has to be a caveat....

The post, titled A Look at 2022: Community, Collaboration, and Commerce, sees Mohan outlining upcoming changes aimed at three specific groups: creators, viewers, and partners. Creators For creators, YouTube explained its goals for its Shorts, Live, and video on demand (VOD) video formats. First up, YouTube reiterated its plans to help creators better monetize their Shorts content. This includes an expansion of the existing YouTube Shorts Fund, added support for its BrandConnect functionality, and access to “fan-funded features like Super Chat” via Shorts....

The company, which is known for its Experience Management software, is looking to personalize individual experiences at scale. Experience ID also aggregates views by segment, teams, geographies and verticals to spot trends and market inflection points. Qualtrics Experience ID is built on the tools acquired from Clarabridge and Usermind. Clarabridge is focused on conversational analytics and Usermind orchestrates customer journeys. Key points about Experience ID: Experience ID captures every form of customer feedback including call center transcripts, social media, product reviews and surveys to gauge individual emotion, effort and intent....

The report sent Qualtrics shares jumped 7% in late trading. “It was an outstanding quarter,” said CEO Zig Serafin in an interview with ZDNet via Zoom. “We’re on a roll, that’s showing up in the momentum of this business.” “And what’s driving this is we are helping organizations analyze and act on the data they just can’t get anywhere else.” “The information we end up enabling is like gold,” added Serafin....

But for many scientists working in the field, the keen interest that investors and CIOs are taking in quantum computing is a double-edged sword. While quantum computers eventually need to move out of labs and into businesses, the technology’s commercialisation might be happening too soon, they warn, running the risk of relegating quantum computing to the much-dreaded ‘over-hyped’ category, along with virtual reality, blockchain or NFTs. It’s not that quantum computing isn’t interesting....

Demand for digital skills in the workplace has been on a steady upward trend for years, but the sudden increased reliance on technology since the start of 2020 has made competition in tech recruitment even more fierce. The challenge is even greater for organizations dealing in highly specialized technologies. Quantum computing, for example, combines a variety of specialist fields – such as quantum theory, advanced mathematics, and computer science – that aren’t seen on your typical CV, shrinking the talent pool considerably for companies looking to hire in this nascent, but increasingly competitive, industry....

Rackspace’s non-GAAP earnings per share in Q2 came to 24 cents on revenue of $744 million, up 13% year-over-year. Revenue growth was strong thanks to new customer acquisitions and growing customer spend in the company’s Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform segments. Analysts were expecting earnings of 22 cents per share on revenue of $740.66 million. “Our second quarter financial results were solid, with double-digit revenue growth and strong operating profit margins,” CEO Kevin Jones said in a statement....

Realtor.com commissioned HarrisX to conduct a national survey of consumers. The total sample size was 2,583 adults surveyed in late September. Although sellers’ expectations for bidding wars and fast-paced sales have increased since this past spring, the potential uptick in new listings offers holiday hope to buyers challenged by the shortage of for-sale homes, the company said. “Buyers should be ready for high asking prices and offer deadlines as seller expectations of the upcoming market are greater than in the spring, but an increase in new sellers could mean some relief from the inventory crunch,” said George Ratiu, manager of economic research for Realtor....

The study was meant to track whether the platform’s recommendation algorithms amplify political content at all, according to Twitter Director of Software Engineering Rumman Chowdhury and Staff Machine Learning Researcher Luca Belli. The two explained in a blog post that Twitter wanted to “better understand the amplification of elected officials’ political content on our algorithmically ranked Home timeline versus the reverse chronological Home timeline.” They tracked millions of tweets from elected officials in seven countries – Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US – from April 1 to August 15, 2020....

The new debit card will replace the company’s current debit card as well as its Cash Management program. Starting today, current debit cardholders will have an opportunity to sign up for the waitlist for the new Cash Card. The card offers a round-up investment feature which rounds up cardholder’s purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the difference into a stock or cryptocurrency of their choice, which can be changed at any time....

Roscosmos tweeted that the agency refuses to launch the OneWeb-owned satellites planned for launch on March 5 if the company does not guarantee its satellites will not be used for military purposes. The satellites are being carried in a Soyuz rocket, which has been rolled out to the Russia-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad. The space agency also went on to say that the satellites will not be launched until the UK government sold its share in OneWeb....

The additions to Financial Services Cloud highlight how Salesforce is targeting industries as well as combining Tableau’s analytics and visualization tools into deals. In Salesforce’s first quarter, Tableau was included in 8 of the company’s top 10 deals. Indeed, Salesforce Industries includes 12 industry clouds covering financial services, consumer goods, healthcare and public sector as well as custom options for sub-verticals. Salesforce updates Service Cloud to meet post-pandemic consumer demandsSalesforce updates Vaccine Cloud with asynchronous registration and schedulingSalesforce updates Sales Cloud for more digital, data-driven salesSalesforce rolls out Rebate Management tool for B2B sales...