Emerging Technology Industry News Headlines Update on June 30, 2021

Exchange Server 2013 End of Support Reminder

Just a reminder that Exchange Server 2013 reaches End of Support on April 11, 2023. That’s about 9 months from now. After that date, Microsoft will no longer provide:

technical support for problems that may occur, bug fixes for issues that are discovered and that may impact the stability and usability of the server, security fixes for vulnerabilities that are discovered and that may make the server vulnerable to security breaches, and time zone updates. Read more: Exchange Server 2013 End of Support Reminder

Email Protection Basics in Microsoft 365: Spam and Phish

Microsoft Support is continuing its blog series which demystifies how Microsoft 365 email protection works. This is the second part of the series, which covers two common types of email threats—-spam and phish. Read more: Email Protection Basics in Microsoft 365: Spam & Phish

General Availability of Idle Session Timeout for Microsoft 365 Web Apps

This week Microsoft announced the general availability of idle session timeout for Microsoft 365 web apps. IT admins can now configure a tenant-wide timeout policy to automatically sign out users after a period of inactivity on Microsoft 365 web apps. Read more: Announcing the general availability of idle session timeout for Microsoft 365 web apps

Alexa Spoofing Dead Relative Voices

Amazon is showing off a feature that will let Alexa learn to speak in a voice of anyone, including a dead relative, by sampling off just one minute of audio. So if you have the voice of a loved one you can have them speak to you using that voice forever. We knew this type of thing was coming, but impressive that it’s here already. Read more: Alexa will soon be able to read stories as your dead grandma

The Zoomification of Slack

Slack is getting Video Huddles, which is going to make it a lot more like Zoom. The feature will release in fall, and will include reaction emoji, effects, and stickers that will be very familiar to Slack users. I think this will be great for people who already use Huddles for 1:1 communication; the real question will be whether it gets adopted as the default for larger scheduled meetings. Read more: The Future of Slack Looks a Lot Like Zoom

Apple’s AR/MR Headset Rumored for January

A number of Apple analysts (including Ming-Chi Kuo) are saying the rumored Apple headset will actually launch in January. Seems early, but what do I know. Other support for this timeline comes from Tim Cook being more chatty about the project recently, which is new for him. Read more: Apple AR/MR headset will ’likely be announced’ in January, says Ming-Chi Kuo [U]

Instagram’s Face-scanning Age Verification Tool

Instagram is testing an AI tool that scans your face to verify your age. Previously you would verify your age by sending in ID card images, and now you’re going to be able to get people to vouch for your age or use the AI tool to estimate it. Read more: Instagram is testing an AI tool that verifies your age by scanning your face

Twitter Notes

Twitter is testing a new feature called Notes where you can append a permanent, long-form version of your tweet. It’s essentially a play to capture some market share from blogging platforms, but I don’t see it as a good solution for that. A blog is more than a place to put a long block of text; it’s a domain that you own, and where Google can discover your content. A digital home base. I feel like Twitter has too many lazy jabs at products like this, and too few full-power punches. Read more: Twitter begins testing long-form ‘Notes’ feature in select regions

Metaverse Standards

Meta has wrangled a number of companies into creating some “metaverse standards”, including Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and a few others (no Apple of course). This to me feels like a continued play at establishing themselves as leaders in the metaverse, when nobody even knows what it is yet. It’s almost like the game is simply, “Talk a lot about it, establish standards, put out marketing videos, etc.—so when people think metaverse they think of us…”. Now that I hear the words, though, I guess I’ve heard worse strategies. Read more: Leading Standards Organizations and Companies Unite to Drive Open Metaverse Interoperability

Microsoft and Apple Working Together to Improve Exchange Online Security

Microsoft has been working for some time with several partners to come up with ways to smoothly transition users from Basic authentication to something more secure: OAuth 2.0-based authentication, or ‘Modern authentication.’ Recently, Microsoft announced that they were working with Apple to help users of their Mail app switch from Basic auth to Modern auth. Read more: Microsoft and Apple Working Together to Improve Exchange Online Security

Microsoft Reveals Cause Behind This Week’s Microsoft 365 Outage

Microsoft has revealed that this week’s Microsoft 365 worldwide outage was caused by an infrastructure power outage that led to traffic management servicing failovers in multiple regions. Starting on Monday, June 20, at 11:00 PM UTC, customers began experiencing and reporting several issues while trying to access and use Microsoft 365 services. Read more: Microsoft reveals cause behind this week’s Microsoft 365 outage

Microsoft 365: Top Customer-Asked Capabilities Available for Servicing Profiles

Microsoft recently announced the general availability of some all-new Servicing profiles capabilities. Their customers spoke, and MSFT listened. Based on input from admins from around the world, Microsoft added and extended controls for Servicing profiles. The overall goal remains unchanged: Provide a modern and easy way to manage your Microsoft 365 Apps updates. Read more: Top customer-asked capabilities now available for Servicing profiles