Microsoft will soon roll out a new system that will help businesses identify inappropriate messages sent by employees over its productivity and collaboration software.
As noted in a new entry in the company’s product roadmap, the Microsoft 365 compliance center will receive an upgrade that will cut the time it takes to identify breaches of company communication policies drastically.
“This feature will reduce the detection to investigation time to under an hour, allowing your organization to respond to communication compliance alerts promptly,” Microsoft explained.
The Microsoft 365 update is currently still under development, but is scheduled to roll out in preview in April, ahead of a full launch in the autumn.
Employee monitoring with Microsoft 365
Unbeknownst to some, many businesses constantly monitor the way in which employees interact with one another over email and communication software.
Part of the justification for this practice, considered by some to be an unacceptable invasion of privacy, is that cybercriminal actors frequently target employees over these kinds of platforms, which can also be used by malicious insiders to exfiltrate data.
Another factor is the opportunity for business software to be used to bully or harass fellow employees, in breach of an organization’s official communications policy.
As explained in a Microsoft 365 blog post, the communication compliance facility tracks messages sent and received over email, Microsoft Teams, Yammer and third-party platforms. Once a message in breach of pre-defined policies has been identified, it is handed over to a designated team of reviewers.
After the Microsoft 365 update takes effect later this year, the time between initial detection and review will supposedly fall from roughly 24 hours to under an hour. As part of the change, Microsoft Teams users will also be encouraged to report “inappropriate or concerning messages” within chats and channels manually, a separate roadmap entry shows.
Although businesses will certainly benefit from the upgrade, it is unclear precisely how Microsoft will manage to cut the investigation time by such a significant margin. TechRadar Pro is awaiting a response to a request for clarification.
Windows 11 is gaining some decent momentum with gamers, at least going by the latest stats from Steam, although Intel has slipped slightly compared to last month’s Steam survey.
The hardware and software survey for January 2022 showed that Windows 11 is now used in 13.56% of the gaming rigs evaluated for this report, which is up quite strongly on December’s figure of 10.15%.
That’s good news for Microsoft, of course, but the survey produced somewhat disappointing results for Intel on the hardware front.
In December’s stats, Intel actually witnessed an increase in its processor market share among Steam gamers to the tune of 0.82%, with Team Blue securing 69.27% in total.
That looked significant given how dominant rival AMD Ryzen processors have been in recent times, stealing a lot of turf from Intel in the desktop PC world – but the upward movement has ebbed for Team Blue, as it dropped slightly to 69.02% in January 2022, albeit that only represents the loss of a quarter of a percentage point.
Analysis: Nothing too worrying for Intel, and serious momentum building for Microsoft
With the Intel figures, while the chip giant might be slightly disappointed that growth hasn’t continued – and that new Alder Lake CPUs aren’t sparking a continued upswing – it’s not a huge surprise.
This is only a very slight loss for Intel, after all, and in recent times, the figures for Team Blue have been rather up and down anyway (even before Alder Lake came out, we saw some decent upticks with Rocket Lake). Really, this is a pretty minimal downward dip, and could be put down to the typical margin of error that Valve’s survey is doubtless working with.
Windows 11’s progress is a more clearly defined growth spurt, and with an increase of 3.41% for January 2022, that’s almost double the gain Windows 11 witnessed from November to December (1.87%).
In short, there’s a clear suggestion that more and more gamers are making the move to Microsoft’s newest OS, despite the early bugs which we’ve written multiple reports about (mind you, some of these are now fixed up, and it’s not like Windows 10 doesn’t have bugs either).
Microsoft is looking to bring two of its most successful software offerings in recent months closer together with another significant update to its video conferencing platform.
The company has announced it is working on a new feature that will allow LinkedIn profiles to be displayed in Microsoft Teams.
The information will be displayed in personal chats, meaning colleagues can find out more about their co-workers, say when planning for a project or looking to help with onboarding.
Microsoft Teams LinkedIn
The official entry in the Microsoft 365 roadmap notes that the change will allow users to see LinkedIn profiles of their colleagues in 1:1 chats only to begin with. Users will be able to view information on a person's profile via the LinkedIn tab in the 1:1 chat panel.
The update is still currently in development, with Microsoft projecting a March 2022 release date at the moment. The tool is also noted as being generally available to all global users across Microsoft Teams web and desktop versions.
Microsoft bought LinkedIn back in 2016 for around $ 26.2 billion as it looked to get a foothold in the social media space. The move has so far proved successful, with Microsoft's most recent financial results showing that Productivity and Businesses Processes, which includes Microsoft 365 and LinkedIn, was up 19% YoY to $ 15.9 billion.
However, the site has struggled to break into the potentially-lucrative Chinese market, with Microsoft forced to launch InCareer, a completely new app solely for Chinese users after being forced to withdraw its standard offering.
Elsewhere, however, LinkedIn appears to be enjoying strong growth in other markets, with Microsoft recently announcing the launch of its worldwide Services Marketplace for freelancers and adding a Hindi option, opening the service up to over 600 million speakers globally.
Microsoft Teams continues to go from strength to strength, with the latest figures from the company showing that the service now boasts over 270 million monthly active users (MAUs).
Recent data collected by software firm StarLeaf found almost all (97%) businesses say that tools such as Zoom, Webex and Teams are now essential to their operations.
More than half (57%) of the 2,000 UK-based respondents claim their company would not be able to operate for more than an hour without access to their communications tools, while 27% admitted they would struggle to function for even 30 minutes.
Windows 11 looks set to get some exciting new features in upcoming updates, with a leak emerging that apparently shows off Microsoft’s plans.
As Neowin reports, the leak comes courtesy of Albacore, a Twitter account that's well known for leaking Windows features. In a series of Tweets we were given a glimpse of what are claimed to be some of changes Microsoft is making to Windows 11.
The first is a new ‘Stickers’ feature for Windows 11. Users will be able to edit stickers and add them to the desktop. These stickers can be placed over your desktop wallpaper, and will apparently remain there if you change wallpapers – though Albacore suggests this feature won’t work if you use a slideshow as your background, or if you have multiple monitors.
It’s also not currently clear if these ‘Stickers’ will be purely decorative, or if they could offer some sort of functionality, such as displaying the date and time.
There’s an interesting personalization feature coming to Windows 11 – Stickers for your wallpaper.You’ll be able to configure them using a new Sticker Editor app, they’ll persist across wallpaper changes as long as you don’t use a slideshow, use Fill fit & have only 1 monitor. pic.twitter.com/KIVtVxw3BCFebruary 5, 2022
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More changes
Changes are also said to be coming to how notifications are shown in Windows 11. This appears to be an area where Microsoft struggles, as notifications in both Windows 10 and Windows 11 haven’t worked as well as many had hoped, with the notifications either being too distracting, or not distracting enough (and easily missed).
According to Albacore, there will be a new ‘Set priority notifications’ setting, which should hopefully give users more control over what notifications they get. Focus Assist, which is a quick setting for turning off or minimizing notifications, is also getting a new name – it’ll just be known as ‘Focus’.
There will also be new options for the ‘Focus’ setting, allowing you to hide badges on taskbar apps (and stop them flashing) and mute notifications. The aim of this mode is to minimize distractions so you can keep focused on the task at hand.
A new ‘Sustainability’ page is also being added to the Settings app. This will allow you to manage the power settings of your device so that it runs more efficiently, and there's also a link to information about how to safely recycle your device.
The page also has leaf-shape icons, and these look like the'll be used to give your device a rating for how energy-efficient it is.
A few more improvements coming to Windows 11 🍃• Sustainability: better energy consumption and device recycling awareness• Focus Assist is becoming Focus, now schedulable through Outlook & sporting more granular options• Notification priorities no longer tucked away in UI pic.twitter.com/5V6t51rDP4February 5, 2022
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It also looks like some form of ‘tablet mode’ will come to Windows 11 that automatically hides the Taskbar when you use your device as a tablet (for example when using a 2-in-1 laptop in its tablet configuration).
It’s not clear when these new features will appear in Windows 11, if indeed they appear at all, but as some have been spotted in early builds it's possible that we could see them in Windows 11’s upcoming major update, known as Sun Valley 2, which is likely to come out in the second half of 2022.
Analysis: tweaks are welcome – but don’t forget the bigger stuff
Assuming this leak proves to be the real deal, these new features would broadly be welcome. While we’re not too sure how useful the Stickers feature will be, giving users more control over notifications, and information on how they can make their device run more efficiently, would certainly be great additions to Windows 11.
However, while it’s nice to get new features and performance tweaks, we don’t want Microsoft to take its eye off the bigger picture. There are still a few things it needs to iron out in Windows 11, including some vital missing features – such as the facility to drag and drop files onto apps pinned to the Taskbar – and we’d like Microsoft to prioritize addressing these issues, rather than worrying about cosmetic changes.
When it comes to collaborating with colleagues, most workers are more likely to use Slack, rather than Microsoft Teams, new research has found..
However, when it comes to making video conferencing calls, chances are people will be using Teams instead of Slack.
A report from SaaS intelligence firm Productiv found 175,000 of its users opt for Slack, while 70,000 went for Teams as their productivity weapon of choice, although many of these users overlap, and go for both platforms when it suits them.
Slack is for chats, Teams is for video calls
So, for overall engagement over 60 days (measuring for one day, a week, a month, and two months), in which “engagement” is defined as logging in and sending a message, Slack is a clear winner, getting more than double the engagement compared to Teams.
Measuring for a day, 37% of Slack users engaged with the platform, compared to 14% of Teams users. Measuring for two months, on the other hand, has shown 83% for Slack users, and 42% for Teams users.
Similar figures are for group messages, as 92% of engaged users in Slack used the feature over the course of 30 days, while just 11% of Teams users did the same.
When it comes to attending meetings, however, Teams excels, while Slack lags behind. Measuring for a single day, just 2% of Slack users logged in for the feature, compared to 46% of Teams users. For 30 days, it’s 12% and 62%, respectively.
Among the possible reasons for this discrepancy, Productiv believes, is the fact that Teams comes bundled with, and is integrated well, with Outlook. Microsoft has also “heavily advertised” the video conferencing feature in its Teams platform, while many Slack users might not be fully aware of their platform offering the same functionality.
Finally, it could be due to many Slack users already very used to Zoom for video conferencing, Productiv concluded.
There are now so many streaming music services to choose from, it's become difficult to easily share links to songs. Sure, you can use the sharing option in Apple Music to send a friend a link to a track you love, but this is little help if they're not an Apple Music user.
And this is where MusicMatch can help. This free app makes it possible to open a shared music link you receive in whatever happens to be your favorite streaming app. So, someone could send you a link to a track on Spotify, but if you're one of the many people who has decided to move away from this particular streaming service, you can use MusicMatch to open the track in Tidal, Pandora, YouTube Music or several other alternative services.
In all, there's now support for seven streaming music platforms – namely Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, Tidal and YouTube Music. In short, MusicMatch gives you a quick, easy and reliable way to open music links in the app of your choice.
We've already looked at the iOS version of MusicMatch as well as the web extension, but things have moved on a great deal in just two short months. We've already mentioned the newly expanded number of supported platforms. The addition of the likes of YouTube Music, Pandora and Tidal means that all of the key music streaming platforms are now covered, so whatever your preferred app is, you should be able to open links in it.
Cross-platform sharing
The idea is great, and the implementation is simple and effective. When someone sends you a link to a track, album or even an artist on a particular streaming platform, you can just copy the link to the clipboard.
Fire up MusicMatch and the app will open the link in whatever you have configured as you preferred music streaming app. It's quick and painless, and significantly less drawn out than performing a search for whatever it is you have been sent.
Even better, if you have the MusicMatch extension for Safari installed, everything is taken care of for you automatically. There is no need to manually open the MusicMatch app as everything will be handled in the background. Getting set up is simplicity itself. Grab the app from the Mac App Store, and when you launch it you can indicate which of the seven supported music services is the one your use.
The ap also lets you create universal links to the music you want to share with others. Send a MusicMatch-created link to a friend and they can choose the app they want to use to listen to the music you want them to hear.
MusicMatch for macOS is available to download from the Mac App Store and more information is available on the MusicMatch website.
The story of Brendan Eich is in many ways the story of the evolution of the internet and the technologies we use to access it. It is also a story of battles won, lost and soon to be played out.
Eich is best known as the creator of programming language JavaScript, which he developed over a sleepless period of ten days in 1995. At the time, he was working for Netscape, whose web browser dominated the market before Internet Explorer spoiled the party.
Recognizing that Netscape had lost its way, Eich spun out another project he had been working on, leading to the formation of the Mozilla Foundation. The organization went on to pioneer the concept of browser extensions with Firefox, which quickly became a household name, before it was crushed under the weight of Google Chrome.
Since departing Mozilla, Eich has focused his attention on a new company called Brave Software, which he believes will help usher in the next landmark period in the history of the internet.
Founded in 2015, Brave is the maker of a privacy-centric web browser by the same name, which blocks both ads and tracking cookies. It is also the proving ground for a novel opt-in advertising model, whereby users are paid for their attention.
With these building blocks, Eich is aiming to bring to fruition an internet characterized not by monopoly and unfettered surveillance, but rather decentralization, disintermediation and individual privacy.
Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript, Mozilla and Brave Software. (Image credit: Brendan Eich)
JavaScript is born
Today, JavaScript is deployed across practically all websites, as part of a famous trifecta that also includes HTML and CSS. It allows web developers to code in all the rich features and dynamic content users interact with on the web, and can also be deployed server-side and for various other purposes.
Given its ubiquity and the extent of its influence over the web, it’s easy to forget JavaScript is the creation of a single person, who put it together in under a fortnight. “The web was evolving almost in a biological fashion [in the 1990s],” Eich told TechRadar Pro. “My big contribution to the process was JavaScript.”
When Eich joined Netscape in 1995, he says there was a “feeling of doom” hanging over the company, because Microsoft was breathing down its neck. The infamous Microsoft strategy was to “embrace, extend and extinguish”; it would embrace a new type of software, extend it with proprietary facilities that only functioned inside Windows, and harness these new capabilities to extinguish the competition.
The previous year, Netscape had spurned a low-ball acquisition offer from Microsoft, so the company knew it was next in line for the typical treatment. The plan to shield itself relied heavily on the integration of Java into the browser and the opportunities made possible by JavaScript, which was designed as a dynamic companion language that non-expert developers could use to add interactivity to their websites.
Netscape Navigator 2.0, released in 1995. (Image credit: Wikipedia)
“We knew Microsoft was coming after us and we wanted to get Netscape Navigator 2.0 out the door, with Java as the big programming language and JavaScript as the sidekick that let the average scripter glue things together,” Eich explained.
To some extent, the endeavor was a success. Microsoft, which had previously stated its intentions to make VBScript the go-to language for building web applications, was ultimately forced to build support for JavaScript into Internet Explorer. This meant the company did not have control over the favorite scripting language of the web.
Until 1996, Eich was the sole developer working full-time on the JavaScript engine, which was plagued by technical debt (in other words, messy code) that resulted from the speed with which it was first composed. It was also apparent that a specification needed to be created, to guarantee web pages would function as intended across the multiple browsers that now supported JavaScript.
After rewriting the core, Eich helped build out a vendor-neutral specification in collaboration with Microsoft and other players, which was then left under the stewardship of a standards body called Ecma International.
History shows that Netscape was ultimately unsuccessful in fending off the advances of Microsoft, which eventually captured 95% of the browser market with Internet Explorer. Bill Gates had not only made his browser free, but also packaged it with Windows machines, which left Netscape no room to maneuver.
“A bunch of us started to see the writing was on the wall,” said Eich. “The feeling that we were doomed had been fulfilled, and the question became: what next?”
Under Bill Gates, Microsoft went in pursuit of Netscape with Internet Explorer. (Image credit: Shutterstock / Paolo Bona)
Mozilla breaks free
Knowing itself beaten, Netscape decided to open source its browser code. Eich says the idea was to create a community like the one that surrounded Linux, which would engender new browser innovation.
The company tasked Eich and a group of other developers with setting in motion the project, which came to be called Mozilla. The team worked “inside a fishbowl” at Netscape, at a remove from the rest of the company, Eich explained.
In the coming years, however, the relationship between the Mozilla team and Netscape executives soured. The two groups traded blows over product design, release timelines, the toxic working culture and other topics.
“It was a difficult time,” said Eich. “I stopped using my Netscape email as much as I could and used an ISP email instead. I acted as if I were completely outside the firewall.”
“I also set up a proxy for the developers we were trying to bring in, who didn’t have the advantage of being employees. Meanwhile, Netscape kept regressing to the mean when it came to the strength of its programmers.”
After a series of layoffs in 2003, Eich and the Mozilla team broke out of their fishbowl to form a standalone non-profit called the Mozilla Foundation, which was tasked with carrying the project forward.
Meanwhile, wounded by the famous antitrust ruling over the bundling of Windows and Internet Explorer, Microsoft had grown lazy with its web browser. The strength of the company’s grip on the market meant it no longer had reason to innovate, creating a window of opportunity for a plucky newcomer.
Despite the politicking inside Netscape, the Mozilla team had managed to build a browser capable of rising to this challenge. The first ever to support extensibility, Firefox (as it came to be known after a series of name changes) rose quickly to prominence and reignited competition in the browser space, says Eich.
Firefox was the first ever web browser to support extensibility, paving the way for Google Chrome and other modern browsers. (Image credit: Shutterstock / tanuha2001)
Mozilla reaped the rewards of its tenacity in the years that followed, attracting many millions of users to Firefox and netting a lucrative deal that saw Google become the browser’s default search engine. Ultimately, though, this level of momentum proved unsustainable and Mozilla was caught out by developments elsewhere in the technology world.
The rise of the smartphone in the late aughts transformed the way people engaged with the internet, and Mozilla failed to spot the danger. While the iPhone shipped with Safari pre-installed and Android devices came with Chrome, Firefox was left out in the cold. Once again, Eich found himself on the wrong end of the platform effect.
Locked out of the mobile market and unable to compete with Google’s marketing spend, Mozilla could do little to stop the numbers tumbling. Once responsible for roughly 30% of web activity, Firefox now holds just a 4% market share, the latest figures suggest.
Although there were efforts to limit the damage with Firefox OS and other projects, Mozilla never managed to regain a proper foothold and has now pivoted towards other products, including a new VPN.
Eich eventually left the organization under a cloud of controversy in 2015. After less than two weeks as CEO, it emerged he had made a donation in support of a ban on same-sex marriage, and the backlash was fierce. We were told an NDA signed between Eich and Mozilla precluded discussions of this chapter of his life.
Brave new world
While no rational person would dispute the importance of Eich’s contribution to the web, it is also true that he has been on the losing side of both so-called browser wars; first at Netscape, then at Mozilla.
This is a pattern he is hoping to break with Brave, which is pitched as the antidote to the threats posed by Google and its stranglehold on the browser and search markets.
Brave’s browser blocks all advertising by default and has a no-tolerance policy towards third-party cookies, which track users across the web to help inform highly-targeted advertising efforts.
Although there are now plenty of browsers that block invasive tracking techniques, Brave stands apart for its ambitions to rewire the economics that underpin the digital advertising industry.
“The plan was that Brave would be faster, easier on the battery and more private,” said Eich. “And with the help of blockchain technology, we also wanted to replumb the economic engine [of the web].”
The company’s unusual model is built around its Basic Attention Token (BAT), which was launched in 2017 via an initial coin offering (ICO). When an advertiser signs up for a campaign, Brave uses 70% of the fee to purchase BAT from the open market, and these tokens are then distributed to users who have opted-in to the ads program.
The Brave Software logo. (Image credit: Brave)
Once in the user’s possession, BAT tokens can either be donated to favorite content creators, used for microtransactions with Brave partners, or flipped into regular currency via an exchange.
Which specific ads are served to which specific users is determined by browsing data that is stored on-device and run through a machine learning (ML) model. Apparently, this approach actually yields markedly higher clickthrough rates than the 2% industry average.
Unlike the Google system, which is based on tracking users indiscriminately across the web, the Brave model is opt-in only, compensates the user for their participation and does not involve the transport of browsing data to the cloud.
The signs suggest this strategy is paying off for Brave, which has benefited from increasing awareness of the importance of privacy among consumers. The latest figures show the browser now attracts 50 million monthly users, which is double the figure from a year ago, and quadruple the year before that.
While these numbers are modest in the context of the total volume of web users, Eich predicts that enthusiasm for the service among developers, crypto fans and privacy evangelists is bound to spill over.
“There are privacy nihilists out there that we’ll never convince, but people have generally become more conscious about their privacy as a result of security breaches and events like the Cambridge Analytica scandal,” he said.
“But to breach the chasm to mass market, reaching people who are aware of these kinds of problems matters, because they convert their friends and family, and this creates rolling thunder.”
Brave’s browser on mobile. (Image credit: Brave)
Empire building
Over the last couple of years, Brave has quietly set about expanding its empire with new privacy-centric products. Orbiting its browser, there is now a Brave VPN, firewall, encrypted video conferencing service, crypto wallet, news aggregator and search engine.
Asked which areas Brave will look to expand into next, Eich declined to provide any concrete information, but did concede the company is “looking at the larger space”. We wouldn’t be surprised to see an encrypted email service from Brave in the near future, for example.
All of these technologies will be foundational to Web 3.0, a new generation of the internet defined by decentralization, disintermediation and greater user privacy. Among those attempting to bring Web 3.0 into being, many believe blockchain and cryptocurrency will play a fundamental role in the transition.
Naturally, Brave has attracted a large number of cryptocurrency enthusiasts, whose ambitions with regards to economic freedom align closely with the company’s attempts to create a more equitable and private web.
The long-term success of the project, however, will be determined by how effectively Brave is able to sell itself to a wider and less technical audience. It has a lot of ground to make up before it can hope to challenge the dominance of Google and other incumbents.
However, as Eich’s story demonstrates, the internet is littered with the corpses of fallen giants. The cry for greater privacy on the web is growing louder and louder, and Brave has put itself in a position to ride the zeitgeist.
Only a few weeks into 2022 and we’re seeing plenty of new apps promising to solve your various problems in novel ways. For example, do you sometimes send reminders to yourself by text message? A new note-taking app with a chat interface will make that habit a little bit more convenient. Another app wants to help you stay focused by removing distractions across all of your Apple devices.
Created by Michael Tigas, Ochi was released as a free download on February 1 in the App Store. You can also opt for the Pro version by paying a monthly subscription of $ 3.99 / £3.49 / AU$ 4.99, or a yearly one for $ 19.99 / £17.99 / AU$ 21.99. You can avoid any subscription fee by purchasing the Pro version outright for the one-time price of $ 49.99 / £44.99 / AU$ 53.99.
This new app allows you to create filters for different apps and websites, so you don’t become distracted when you’re trying to finish important work. You can block out certain social media accounts, for example, preventing you from accessing specific apps or associated webpages via web browsers. Ochi lets you pick and choose the apps and web pages you need to be silenced while you focus.
It’s easy to be distracted when you’re using your smartphone, tablet, or computer. While Apple has its own features to assist with distractions – such as Do Not Disturb and the relatively new Focus feature in iOS 15, which can hide apps and change your home screen – Tigas wanted to create something that goes further.
Having tried Ochi over the last few weeks, I’m reminded of an app I used to use called SelfControl, which was available on my old MacBook Air 2013 machine. SelfControl would automatically close apps and block websites when I was focused on writing my college dissertation.
But Tigas’ app is tailored for the modern age, where you have multiple devices with the same account. If you create a filter to block out Facebook on your iPhone, for example, that same block will carry over to your iPad or desktop iMac without any additional input from you.
(Image credit: Ochi)
And the design of the app on iPhone and macOS is appealing, both simple and colorful, with useful widgets to enable filters or show you how much time remains before Ochi unblocks the apps and websites you’ve specified.
Ochi also shows up in the menu bar on macOS, so you easily pause the filtering if you need to access any of the apps or sites you’ve blocked.
A chat with Ochi’s developer
Speaking with Tigas after the launch of Ochi, I asked what prompted him to create the app.
“Ochi was inspired on a whim, by the idea of blocking distractions across all my devices, keeping me focused when my willpower is at its lowest,” Tigas explained. “During the day, while focusing on a task, I block apps like Twitter on my Mac with the app, Focused Work. But sometimes, I use my iPhone or iPad to test apps that I’m working on. It becomes very easy to doom-scroll with them instead.”
There have been efforts by Apple to look at how we manage our time on our devices, from Focus in iOS 15 to the ScreenTime feature in iOS 13. We asked Tigas what specifically made Ochi different from these and third-party focus apps.
“Rather than motivating people to focus on completing a particular task, Ochi instead helps steer people away from distractions so they can maintain focus for longer periods of time.”
“It’s a flexible utility, that can seamlessly integrate with various workflows, especially if they take advantage of automation capabilities in iOS (and to a lesser extent – macOS),” Tigas said. “You can create timed filters that block access to iOS apps, Mac apps, websites, and categories of websites including Social Media, Chat, and News.
It’s also possible to seamlessly enable filters on your iPhone and iPad from a Mac with Shortcuts – a first in the distraction-blocking space.”
(Image credit: Ochi)
Since Ochi is solving a focus issue by targeting distractions, we wondered in which situations Tigas found the app to be particularly beneficial.
“Outside of work and when it’s time to go to bed, Ochi has been really helpful while I’m playing online games with friends,” Tigas explained. “I sometimes tend to pick up my phone in-between Apex Legends or PUBG matches and disengage with the group conversation. It’s a bad habit, and Ochi keeps me on rails in those fun moments.”
Even though the app has only recently launched, we wondered whether there are any new features under development.
“I’m really excited for the next phase and have kept an open mind about keeping Ochi as flexible as it can be!” Tigas exclaimed. “On the Mac, Ochi can lean on Shortcuts & Focus to automatically block distractions on iOS devices via automation in the Shortcuts app. But since automation support is not available in Shortcuts for Mac, I’m interested in bridging that gap to seamlessly apply filters on the Mac from my iPhone or iPad (or even my Apple Watch).”
Tigas told me that he’d really like to add support for scheduling recurring filters.
“This will be especially helpful with automatically blocking apps like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit from 1 am onwards, without needing to initiate that every night,” Tigas said.“I can also see people appreciating the ability to block emails at various times during their workday.”
Microsoft is preparing an update for collaboration platform Teams that has the potential to help users make the most of their desktop space, but is limited by a strange design decision.
According to an entry in the Microsoft 365 product roadmap, Teams users will soon receive the option to pack a larger number of messages on screen courtesy of a new compact mode.
The view mode will reduce both the font size and space between lines, allowing for 50% more chat messages to be displayed at once.
The feature is still currently under development, but should roll out to all Microsoft Teams customers by the end of the month.
Compact mode in Microsoft Teams
Although compact mode in Microsoft Teams will probably be inappropriate for anyone that struggles with vision problems, it could prove useful in a range of scenarios.
For example, multitaskers running Teams in windowed mode will be able to reduce the amount of real estate taken up by the app without cutting the number of messages they can see. The new mode will also benefit those running Teams on a portable monitor or work laptop, who until now have had to make do with reading fewer messages at a time.
Bafflingly, however, compact mode will only apply to one-on-one chats, not channels. It’s a strange decision, given the volume of messages that pass through group channels is typically much larger than in private chains.
The update will also apply only to the Microsoft Teams desktop client, at least for now, which means those working from smaller smartphones and tablets will not benefit.
TechRadar Pro has asked Microsoft about the rationale behind the decision to exclude channels from compact mode, and whether iOS and Android users will receive the option in future.
Mozilla has revealed it is shutting down its virtual reality (VR) browser, Firefox Reality, after four years.
Launched in 2018 as “an open source browser that respects your privacy”, Firefox Reality had been available for Oculus, Vive and HoloLens headsets, offering a mixture of consumer-based and business-focused VR apps and experiences.
The browser allowed users to get onto the internet using a VR headset, with tasks such as typing URLs, performing searches and browsing both the 2D and 3D internet carried out with VR hand controllers instead of a mouse.
Firefox Reality closure
However it seems that the browser didn't quite have the impact Mozilla had hoped for, and will be withdrawn from service.
“Mozilla’s mission is to make sure the internet remains open and accessible to all,” the company wrote in a blog post.
“We’ve been at the forefront of developing new technologies, like WebVR and WebAR, and in some instances, Mozilla continues to remain the host and incubator of those new technologies, as with Hubs. With other technologies, we find communities and organizations where our projects can continue to grow and contribute to the web like WebAssembly, Rust and Servo.”
The technology behind the browser will still live on, however, with the platform being handed over to Igalia, which will use the Firefox Reality source code to build its own browser, Wolvic.
“On mobile or desktop, the web is woven into everything. It’s how we communicate, get information, entertain ourselves, and so much more. In the last few years, XR has really matured. The increase of devices shipping with an immersive OS is incredible. As such, now is an especially critical time to ensure that we establish the web on them in a healthy way,” said Brian Kardell, Developer Advocate at Igalia.
“The Firefox Reality project was created with similar aims, to give users some choice and ensure that open and unlimited access to the web remains strong on these devices. These ideas are core to what we do at Igalia, so we’re thrilled to be able to carry the torch forward in leveraging that work to create a new browser, Wolvic. Together, we will help to ensure that the web ecosystem remains healthy.”
Firefox Reality will be removed from stores in the coming weeks, with Wolvic available in its place.
“Since its launch, Firefox Reality offered users a unique browser in the mixed reality space,” Mozilla added. “It was the first cross-platform browser built by a trusted company, Mozilla, and quickly adopted by companies for use in their hardware devices.”
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