IT Executive news

June's Patch Tuesday updates focus on Windows, Office

16-06-2023 20:41

Microsoft released 73 updates to its Windows, Office, and Visual Studio platforms on Patch Tuesday, with many of them dealing with core, but not urgent, security vulnerabilities. That's a welcome respite from the previous six months of urgent zero-days and public disclosures. With that in mind, the Readiness testing team suggests a focus on printing and backup/recovery processes to make sure they're not affected by this update cycle.For the first time, we see a (non-Adobe) third-party vendor ad

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Despite growth, Oracle reported to cut jobs at Cerner healthcare unit

16-06-2023 18:53

Just days after reporting a jump in quarterly cloud revenue and record-breaking annual sales, Oracle has reportedly laid off hundreds of employees and pulled job offers for its Cerner healthcare unit, which it acquired in December for $28.3 billion.The layoffs were a result of a troubled deal between Cerner and the US Department of Veterans Affairs Office, according to a report by Insider.In April, the VA said that it was renegotiating its contract with Cerner due to a number of issu

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Apple’s Vision Pro: The pros and cons of head-mounted hardware

16-06-2023 18:22

I remain convinced that the market is looking for something revolutionary like Apple’s recently announced Vision Pro to replace smartphones, tablets, and PCs. I’m not yet convinced Vision Pro will do that, but it is on the right path. Now that Apple has made a move, rivals will increasingly be in the hunt to see whether they can deliver something better or cheaper (which shouldn’t be that hard.But head-mounted displays aren’t for everyone, which is why it’s taken s

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Japan to force Apple to permit app sideloading next year

16-06-2023 14:50

Japan has joined the EU in an effort force Apple to open up to sideloading on its iOS platforms; Japan’s government has drawn up a series of regulations that will require both Google Android and Apple’s own platforms to permit app downloading from outside the App Stores.Japan wants app sideloading, app deletion, more
The government seems to believe doing so will spur competition and lead to lower app prices. Critics argue these steps may also spur crime and lead to higher device pri

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From Kin to Clippy — the worst Microsoft products not named Windows

16-06-2023 12:00

Microsoft recently made it official: its misguided, useless and almost comically bad digital assistant Cortana will finally be killed this fall when Windows support for it ends. The impending death of Cortana made me think about the worst products in Microsoft’s history (not including versions of Windows), many of which have their own brand of awfulness. Because the company is nearly 50 years old, and the list is long, I had to do a lot of strolling down unpleasant memory lanes.To r

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