Preceding its general availability, Microsoft has recently rolled out a major update for Microsoft Teams -- Window’s version of the cloud-based team collaboration tool, Slack. The latest bundle of features will kick things up a notch, allowing you to do more than IM your manager about your weekly meeting or ask your colleagues to remove the “view only” setting on Google Docs. Smarter meetings The latest addition to Microsoft Teams is Scheduling Assistant, responsible for finding the ideal time to schedule a meeting. It takes into consideration the schedules of all members, and suggests the best possible time for all attendees. Needless to say, whereas Teams allowed users to schedule only intra-team meetings, Microsoft now supports one-on-one meetings. If you want to steer clear of Skype, read on. Bots, bots, and more bots With the latest update, bots are now capable of tapping into conversations happening in a team as opposed to a separate chat. To activate team bots, simply type “@” and begin interacting with the bot from there. Microsoft is also working on adding a Bots tab to Teams. This allows you to keep track of all the bots that have been added to a certain team while allowing you to discover new tabs as well. Other bot-related improvements include: New bot gallery - the gallery displays a complete list of all the available bots on Microsoft Teams. Alongside the gallery is where you can add bots to one of your teams. Discover bots via search - simply click on the search bar at the top and select “Discover bots”. From there click on a bot to start chatting, or click “Add” to add it to a team. Add a bot with an @mention - to add a bot to a channel, simply type “@” in your compose box, then select “Add a bot” Public teams With public teams, anyone from your organization can join the team, unlike the private teams which are open only to specific members. Public teams will show up when a user is trying to join a new team, and you can also turn your existing private team into a public team (and vice-versa). When it was launched in November 2016, Teams was a relatively minimal service. But in past months, it’s become a lot more powerful and stable. Microsoft Teams is available to Office 365 Business Essentials, Business Premium, and Enterprise E1, E3 and E5. If you have any questions, give Multi IT a call on 011 435 0450 or visit our website!

Google releases a new version of Google Chrome almost every month. Some updates involve minor bug fixes and improvements, while others feature many more exciting additions. For its version 57 release, Google announced some serious upgrades to Chrome, and here are the three we think you’ll be more interested in. More power consumption improvements Google’s browser is a known battery hog. At one point it got so bad that Microsoft was publicly criticizing Google Chrome engineers for destroying laptop battery performance. Part of the problem is that Google Chrome allocates far more processing power to tabs running in the background than do other browsers. Google’s browser now limits power devoted to unopened tabs at 1% of CPU consumption. But if you’re using minimized tabs to stream music or video, don’t worry, Google Chrome won’t limit these. Engineers claim this change will “lead to 25 percent fewer busy background tabs.” Chrome for iOS gets a “Save for Later” feature In what is probably a delayed attempt to catch up to iOS’s native Safari browser, this version of Chrome for Apple devices will feature offline reading. To add to your reading list, just tap the Share icon in the upper right hand corner of the browser and select “Read Later.” Even if you don’t have internet, you can view content from both the Unread and Pages You’ve Read sections of your reading list. Although not quite as convenient, earlier versions of Google Chrome on Android have a roundabout way of doing the same thing. When clicking the the download icon under the Menu dropdown, Chrome saves offline pages in local storage. Better graphics on desktops Google Chrome has also received a serious boost in terms of visual processing power. Google’s browser now supports WebGL 2.0, which improves the speed, textures, and animated effects of elements on websites. Support for WebGL has yet to make its way to mobile versions of the browser, but desktop improvements should put graphics on par with the 3D graphics in most modern games. Firefox and Opera already support this standard, but its addition to the most popular browser on the internet creates a huge incentive for web designers to push the visual boundaries. For those who have been in the small- and medium-sized business field for a while, it’s tempting to think that browser improvements really aren’t that big of a deal. But in an age when the majority of work is done inside of browsers rather than software, how you surf matters. For all the best news and tips, get in touch with Multi IT on 011 435 0450 or by visiting our website.

Wikileaks, the website that anonymously publishes leaked information, recently released a number of documents alleging widespread surveillance by the US government. The released documents claim that the vast majority of these efforts took place via smartphones, messaging apps and...TVs? Let’s see just how worrisome they really are. What devices and apps are supposedly vulnerable? Wikileaks labeled its ongoing release of 8,761 classified CIA documents “Year Zero.” Nestled among those files are tools and correspondence that explain how operatives could snoop on communications, downloads, and browsing history. Here is a list of the “affected” applications and hardware: Windows operating systems iOS Android Samsung Smart TVs WhatsApp Signal Telegram Confide Those are some very big names, right? Thankfully, it’s mostly hyperbole. The reality of the situation isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds. Two considerations before freaking out First, almost all these exploits require physical access to devices before anything can be compromised. For example, news organizations repeatedly reported that WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and Confide all had encryption protocols that had been subverted by the CIA. That is 100% false. What the documents actually revealed is that the CIA was aware of security gaps in Windows, iOS, Android and Samsung’s Tizen OS, which allowed the agency to snoop on messages before they were encrypted. Messages sent in these apps are still totally uncrackable as long as the devices they are installed on haven’t been physically compromised. Takeaway #1: Physical security is still one of the most important aspects of cyber security. Most data security regulations require certain physical security protocols as a deterrent to breaches that take place via theft of social engineering -- and for good reason. The second reason not to worry is the hardware devices and operating systems that supposedly left encrypted messages vulnerable haven’t been sold for a long time. For example, only Samsung TVs from before 2013 were vulnerable to the always-on microphone bug -- which was patched in an OS update years ago. But what about iOS -- surely that’s the scariest reveal of them all, right? Not quite. Only the iPhone 3G, discontinued in 2010, was susceptible to exploitation. Furthermore, Apple immediately responded that they were aware of this vulnerability and patched it in the version of iOS that was released in 2011. Takeaway #2: Updating software is critical to keeping your data safe. As we saw in the Year Zero leaks, just one piece of outdated software can cause a domino effect of other vulnerabilities. Data Security In reality, the most recent Wikileaks releases shouldn’t change your approach to cyber security at all. As long as you consider data security a never-ending battle, you’ll be safer than everyone too lazy or forgetful to lock up their server rooms or update their operating system. But running a business doesn’t always leave you a lot of time for fighting a “never-ending battle,” does it? Fortunately, that’s exactly what we do for our clients every single day. To find out more about how we can keep you safe, call Multi IT on 011 435 0450 or give our website a visit!