Technology

Microsoft is going to rethink its harassment policy. The approach to complaints about ex-boss Bill Gates and other directors is also being investigated and put into a public report.   Microsoft is investigating its policies and handling of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. The tech giant plans to publish a report on this by spring. It would also contain the results of investigations into harassment by board members and directors, including an investigation into complaints about co-founder Bill Gates. Gates, long one of the wealthiest people globally, was kicked out of Microsoft's board in 2020, presumably for having a relationship with an employee. The company's board launched an initial investigation into his conduct in 2019, and after that investigation deemed his role...

Microsoft Removes Top Chip Designer from Apple. Mike Filippo trades Apple for Microsoft. There he will focus on server chips for Microsoft Azure.   Filippo worked for Apple for over two years but has been active as a chip developer since 1996 and previously worked at AMD and ARM. According to Bloomberg sources, he is now moving to Microsoft. There is no formal comment on his move by either company. But it is generally assumed that Microsoft wants to switch faster in developing chips for its Azure data centres with its arrival. There is a trend where major technology players are developing their own chips specifically for their data centres, electric cars or AI applications. For example, at the end of 2020, Reuters learned from a good source that Microsoft wants to do this for its ...

Samsung Electronics has made an operating profit of 13.8 trillion won in the past three months. That is the best quarter ever for the Korean tech giant.   The profit is therefore 52.5 percent higher than a year ago. The turnover also reached new heights with 76 quadrillion won, 23.5 percent higher than a year ago. Samsung itself shares this in a prospect of the full results later this month. For the avoidance of doubt, this only concerns Samsung Electronics, not the industrial, insurance, or construction activities of the Samsung Group. The chip activities and strong demand for memory chips, among other things, made Samsung's cash register ring. Still, the sale of foldable smartphones is also said to have contributed to the success. With the provisional figures for the fourth qua...

The still wildly popular battle royale game Fortnite from Epic Games was down for more than 7 hours on Wednesday evening. Meanwhile, the server issues have been resolved.   Loyal players will agree: Fortnite has been dealing with regularly recurring server problems for the past two weeks. With last night's 7-hour breakdown as the low point. The problems started on Wednesday evening around 4 p.m. UK time. The game's servers remained offline "due to stability issues," according to Fortnite's Twitter account. There were also reports worldwide of problems logging into the Epic Games Store. After more than 7 hours, Epic Games announced that the issues had been resolved. Fortnite seems to have been struggling with capacity or scaling issues since Chapter 3 kicked off this month. Additio...

Ericsson acquires US cloud company Vonage. It pays $6.2 billion for that. Vonage was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in the US state of New Jersey.   The company, led by Rory Read, generated $1.4 billion in sales last year with an EBITDA margin of 14 percent. The company has 120,000 customers and more than one million registered developers. The acquisition is one of the largest ever for Ericsson and has the full support of Vonage's board, but remains subject to approval by Vonage shareholders and the relevant regulators. Ericsson expects to complete the acquisition in the first half of next year. Among other things, Vonage has its Vonage Communications Platform, which accounts for eighty percent of its revenue. At the same time, it also provides Unified Communications (UCaaS)...

One of the most dangerous families of malware ever has returned. It concerns the Emotet botnet, which was removed from one million computers earlier this year due to intervention by the Dutch and German police. But, unfortunately, the botnet has resurfaced and is once again on the rise.   G Data SecurityLab, which specializes in IT security, warns about this. The new Emotet sample discovered bears several technical similarities to the original malware. A comparison of the source code shows similar structures, according to the security company. However, there are also differences: unlike the previous Emotet variants, the network traffic is still encrypted, but the new variant uses HTTPS with a self-signed certificate. Emotet is malware that was first discovered in 2014. The malware ...

Apple cannot delay a court-mandated change to its App Store policy. So the tech company had to give app makers the option from December 9 to let their users know that they can take out cheaper subscriptions elsewhere via a website.   Apple had requested a postponement because the company has appealed but is now being blunt. The obligation stems from Epic Games' lawsuit against Apple. The software company behind the popular game Fortnite found that Apple's rules for the App Store amounted to an abuse of power. For example, software makers have to pay Apple a 30 percent commission on every transaction through the App Store and are obliged to use Apple's own payment system for this. Nor may they point to cheaper ways of taking out subscriptions. Many software makers charge a cheaper ...