With Microsoft poised to increase its first substantive commercial pricing increase for Microsoft 365 since the company launched Office 365 a decade ago, we take a look at the added benefits and value and the justification behind the price changes.

Six Months Ago

Microsoft made its official announcements about which prices it would change and by how much back in August 2021. The new prices for its commercial products come into effect on March 1, 2022 and range from increases of 9 per cent to 25 per cent depending on the product. However, as the company points out, some considerable value has been added to its services over the last 10 years that may more than justify the increases.

Value-Adding Innovation Over 10 Years

It would be hard to disagree that Microsoft 365 has dramatically improved its products over the last 10 years, mostly thanks to re-investment and keeping its products relevant to business needs. In fact, since the introduction of 365, the company has added no less than 1,400 features, and 24 apps to the suites! (Microsoft Teams, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Stream, Planner, Visio, OneDrive, Yammer, and Whiteboard).

Security

One extremely important challenge for businesses and organisations to tackle in today’s business environment is cyber security, both for business continuity and compliance. In fairness, Microsoft 365 has added plenty of security capabilities over the years to keep businesses ahead of prevailing threats. For example, data loss prevention (DLP) for email and documents, sensitivity labels, and message encryption help guard valuable company data and Content Search, as well as eDiscovery, and core Litigation Hold to help with compliance.

The Hybrid Working Security Challenge

Hybrid working has proven to be another big challenge to security for businesses and organisations around the world. On this point, Microsoft is keen to highlight how its “Built-in mobile device management (MDM) and other management tools like Microsoft Endpoint Manager help admins support remote and hybrid workforces.”

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is a technology that’s transforming many areas of business automation. Microsoft has also added many AI elements to 365. For example, cloud-powered AI helps create maps, charts, and tables in Excel, as well as sorting and uncluttering Outlook. Plus, AI-powered real-time translation, captions, and transcription have now been added to improve collaboration and communication.

Competition

There are, of course, other cloud-based productivity suite options for businesses such as the more browser-centric Google Workspace, Zoho Workspace, and more. For most businesses it’s a case of finding the best fit with the installed base of hardware, using a familiar environment that fits the needs and workflow of the organisation. As the marketing people at Microsoft know all too well, in respect of the classic relationship within the often-cited ‘Porter’s 5 Forces’, the company has considerable supplier power but there’s always competitive rivalry and threats of substitution, and its price rise can’t just be based on its market power.

Teams

It would also be difficult not to note the important contribution that Microsoft Teams has made to many businesses during the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. Although by no means the only collaborative working platform around (e.g. Zoom, Slack) Microsoft Teams (launched in 2017) proved to be the right solution at the right time for many, providing a practical way forward at the most uncertain time in living memory.

It is not surprising that with staff suddenly finding themselves working remotely and businesses having to undergo rapid digital transformations, with Teams already being part of Microsoft’s suite, it proved very popular. In fact, as far back as pre-pandemic December 2019, it was reported as having 20 million daily active users, and when the first lockdown hit in March 2020, Microsoft reported that Teams saw a massive 12 million user boost in one week!

Today, Teams has become the main communications platform for many businesses and organisations across the UK and Microsoft has put some considerable effort and investment into keeping it that way. For example, in 2020 over 300 new capabilities were added to Teams (Together mode, background effects, large gallery view, and more). Also, collaborative applications in Teams have been added to help with hybrid working e.g., Power Platform, Whiteboard, Lists, Planner, Shifts, Forms, and SharePoint, plus there are now many popular third-party apps that can integrate with Teams e.g., Adobe, Atlassian, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, and Workday.

Other Teams Boosts

Other ways that Microsoft has boosted the power and value of Teams are, for example, by introducing features like real-time collaboration in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint desktop apps, as well as adding and expanding OneDrive cloud storage and the Exchange Online mailboxes. Unlimited dial-in capabilities for Teams has also been introduced across Microsoft’s enterprise, business, frontline, and government suites.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Price increases are never great news for businesses but after such a long time with no substantive increases, it was to be expected. 10 years is a particularly long time in the tech world where many huge changes can take place and there’s no doubt that Microsoft has invested in (and improved) Office 365 to transform it into the Microsoft 365 of today. The use of the cloud and apps like Teams have proven vital over the lasts two years of remote and hybrid working and, as Microsoft points out, continuous innovation has been the way that it has tried to keep its products relevant, and this is the key justification behind its March commercial price rises. In a forthcoming article, we’ll take a look at the price rise figures and some of the opinions and reactions by tech commentators and in the marketplace.

The ICO launched an investigation after more than 1,000 Sussex and Surrey police officers were found to have downloaded a free app to covertly record calls with members of the public on police-issued phones.

Google Play Store App

The app, free to download for the Google Play Store, and called ‘Another Call Recorder’ (ACR), had been approved for use in 2017 for negotiators when dealing with kidnaps/hostage and other crisis situations. The app, which reportedly works best on older Android phones is able to record and store all incoming and outgoing calls made on a mobile by accessing the microphone and the speaker’s data feeds, and by saving the recordings to the phone’s storage.

Problem – No Means To Restrict

As discovered by the ICO, the fact that any police officers were able to download the app for free from Google Play meant that its use couldn’t be restricted to just the purpose that it was originally approved for. The ICO’s investigation found, therefore, that the app had been used to make “indiscriminate” covert recordings of calls with members of the public on 700 police phones (545 installations of the app by Sussex, and 238 by Surrey). The indiscriminate, widespread, and apparently arbitrary use of the app by Police was stopped after Surrey and Sussex forces found out about the practice in March 2020 and referred themselves to the ICO and the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (ICPO) four months later.

Disclosure

The main legal issue to be investigated was that of ‘disclosure,’ i.e., whether it breached the Investigatory Powers Act by amounting to unlawful “interception” of a communication by means of a private or public telecommunication system.

Other potential legal issues relating to the use of the app could include:

– Whether the other party on the call had been warned that they were being recorded (relating to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights).

– Whether usage of the app may have breached data protection laws e.g., if it was used to record calls relating to a minor crime, rather than the major crime of hijacking that it has been passed for use with.

The Findings

The IPCO’s investigation concluded that:

– The app was recording the communication while it was being transmitted, which constituted recording at a “relevant time.”

– The version of the app used by police didn’t allow recordings of the calls to be automatically uploaded to cloud services i.e., didn’t make them available to a third party while in the course of transmission; it was only available to the app user once the recording had been stored locally on the device. This meant that the conduct was not sufficient by itself to render the call recording “interception”. Also, the IPCO concluded that the installation and use of the app is not interception.

– Since telephone calls are protected under Article 8, European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) the use of the app by police did constitute ‘covert’ surveillance i.e., it did not warn the other party that they were being recorded.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

It is a little shocking that hundreds of members of two police forces were using a free app for years to make arbitrary, covert recordings of people, without their consent or knowledge, and did not know that this could constitute a breach of laws. It should be noted that the particular app used by the police is in contrast to apps used by businesses, such as Skype for Business, Microsoft Teams and Zoom because these do inform users when a participant records the call, and their recording feature automatically warns all other parties.

As the IPCO report pointed-out, however, both forces, upon discovery of the issue, promptly brought it to the attention of the relevant authorities and took immediate steps on their own to stop the usage of the app and remove it from devices. In this case, because the app kept the recordings on the phone itself and didn’t send them to a third-party (the cloud) it was deemed not to be interception.

In the business world, a Prospect trade union poll from last November showed that 32 per cent of UK workers are being remotely monitored and tracked by employers. There is concern about a lack of regulation at present and the issue of consent is very important. Businesses should note that under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, individuals have a non-absolute right to respect for their private and family life and correspondence, and (UK) GDPR has some important details relating to data protection and consent that need to be considered. For businesses who want to monitor their employees, however, the broad rules are that workers are entitled to some privacy at work, and employers must tell employees about any monitoring arrangements and the reason for it. Also, employers should have procedures in place setting out what is and what isn’t allowed, and these procedures should be made clear and understood by all workers before monitoring begins. Generally, employers must have a genuine reason to conduct any covert monitoring such as criminal activities or malpractice, and any monitoring should be limited, targeted and within certain times, with employers having regard for private communications.

Los Angeles based Nanotech Energy claims to have developed a fireproof, graphene-based lithium-ion battery that could be safer for Electric Vehicles.

What Is Graphene?

Extracted from graphite, graphene is a single layer (monolayer) of carbon atoms, tightly bound in a two-dimensional, hexagonal honeycomb lattice nanostructure. First observed through electron microscopes in 1962, it was re-discovered in 2004 (although Nanotech says 2002). Graphene has exceptionally high tensile strength – 10 times that of steel, electrical conductivity, transparency, is the thinnest two-dimensional material in the world, and is the second-strongest material in the world (to Borophene).

What Causes Fires With Traditional Lithium-Ion Batteries?

Volume changes (expansion) of lithium-ion battery electrodes during charge and discharge can cause an internal short circuit, which can lead to a fire. Also, lithium-ion batteries can catch fire if they have been improperly manufactured or damaged, or if the software that operates the battery isn’t designed correctly. Lithium-ion batteries can sometimes also simply overheat during charging.

In the case of using lithium-ion batteries in EV’s, the use of organic liquid electrolytes (the battery’s most flammable component), which can be volatile and flammable when operating at high temperatures can increase the fire risk e.g., if a car-crash causes a chemical leakage.

How Is A Graphene-Based Battery Different?

The new graphene-based battery from Nanotech is reported to be different because:

– It has graphene electrodes i.e., the positive (cathode) and negative (anode) terminals. This helps the battery to withstand its volume changes during charge and discharge, thereby reducing the potential fire risk. Also, with graphene being a highly effective conductor of electricity, it can help the battery to keep a lower internal resistance and temperature, thereby helping to prevent overheating during charging.

– It uses a non-flammable, stable, and inexpensive proprietary electrolyte solution, called Organolyte™. A non-flammable electrolyte means a dramatically reduced fire risk.

– It has a new proprietary separator. The graphene battery electrodes must be separated by a material through which the ions transfer. Instead of using a typical polyolefin separator Nanotech Energy has developed a new separator material that improves stability and makes the battery safer.

Performance

In terms of performance, Nanotech reports that the battery retains more than 80 percent of its rated capacity through 1,400 cycles and can charge “18 times faster than anything that is currently available on the market”. The battery is also reported to be able to maintain performance at extreme temperatures (-40 to 140 degrees F), hold charge at temperatures as high as 350 degrees, and won’t catch fire if damaged with a nail or heated to more than 1,300 degrees.

Easy To Manufacture And Better For The Environment.

Other reported benefits of the new battery are that it doesn’t require exotic materials and can be relatively easily manufactured on existing equipment in various form factors (cylindrical, pouch, etc.). Also, Nanotech says that using graphene-based batteries could help develop more cost-efficient, environmentally friendly personal electronic devices to create a more efficient way to harness renewable energy.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

EV’s are the way forward for domestic and commercial transport, but one of the big challenges that EV manufactures have faced is developing a battery that requires infrequent charging, charges very quickly, is durable, can go a long way on a charge, and is safe. This new graphene-based battery certainly appears to address the safety, fast charging and durability issues, and the fact that it is relatively easy to manufacture using existing equipment (keeping costs down) is also a big bonus. This discovery could go some way to helping push the EV market forward if widely adopted, although initial production looks set to concentrate on the consumer electronics market rather than electric vehicles pending more testing time. This means that these batteries may not go into big commercial production for another year, and there are still other EV challenges to overcome, such as meeting the charging network demand.

In this article, we take a look at some of the ways users can assess how good their VPN really is.

What Is A VPN?

A ‘Virtual Private Network’ (VPN) is used to keep internet activity private, evade censorship / maintain net neutrality and use public Wi-Fi securely (e.g., avoid threats such as ‘man-in-the-middle’ attacks). A VPN achieves this by diverting a user’s traffic via a remote server to replace their IP address while offering the user a secure, encrypted connection (like a secure tunnel) between the user’s device and the VPN service. This should mean that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or anyone else cannot read what you’re doing while using your VPN.

VPN services apps are downloaded to devices and connected when they are needed, for example, for security when using public Wi-Fi and/or when working remotely.

Other VPN Uses

In addition to security, VPNs can also be used for:

– Hiding where and how you browse from your ISP so the details can’t be sold to advertisers or accessed in a data breach of your ISP.

– Accessing the latest film or series in a country where there are content restrictions in place.

Performance

A VPN should be fast and easy to operate and, obviously, secure, as well as being the right price (free ones are available).

Possible Issues With VPNs

Some of the possible issues with VPNs that could affect their performance include:

– Not being fast enough.

– Leaking a user’s IP address and/or DNS requests when the user goes online.

– Having broken features that may not secure a user’s true Internet Protocol Version 6 address (IPv6), which could expose the user’s details to third parties.

– Not having a good VPN ‘kill switch’ (Network Lock), thereby not keeping data secure if the connection drops for any reason.

– As highlighted by a 2019 VPN Pro study, almost one-third of the most popular VPN services are secretly owned by Chinese companies that may be subject to weak privacy laws.

Checking

Ways you find out if your VPN is satisfactory include:

– Using speed test tools such as the new open-source speed-test tool from NordVPN that allows users to compare the speeds of different VPN services. See: https://nordvpn.com/vpn-speed-test/ for details. Other VPN speed test tools include SPEEDTEST online https://www.speedtest.net/ or app – SPEEDTEST VPN (https://www.speedtest.net/apps/vpn), or by checking online rankings e.g., CNET’s comparison (speed and privacy) https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/fastest-vpn/.

– Check for DNS leaks / perform a DNS leak test to help discover if your VPN is private. For example, see https://www.dnsleaktest.com/, https://ipleak.net/, or https://surfshark.com/dns-leak-test. Connect to a VPN server and load ipleak.net in your internet browser, manually (disconnect) while the VPN client is running and then load some test websites while the VPN is reconnecting. This may identify brief reconnection leaks.

– Check for IP address leaks such as DNS IP leaks (see dnsleaktest.com or dnsleak.com), Torrent IP Leaks – if using Torrent( see http://checkmyip.torrentprivacy.com/), WebRTC IP Leaks from the web browser (use a Chrome extension e.g., such as WebRTC Leak Prevent or WebRTC Prevent Shield), or an email IP leak (see https://emailipleak.com/).

– Check whether censorship can be bypassed e.g., the user switching their VPN on and off while trying to access restricted content.

Limitations With VPN Testing Tools

It should be remembered that VPN testing tools may not be entirely reliable due to limitations such as a lack of transparency in how speeds are measured, their reliability and the verification of their results, and whether they work for a wide range of different VPN providers.

Reviews and Trusted Brands

For many people, a little online research of reviews, rankings, comparisons, and opinions is the most effective way of assessing the comparative effectiveness of a VPN. Also, many people may simply prefer to go with personal recommendations or go with well-known trusted brands when it comes to allaying fears about making the wrong choice or tackling feelings of post-purchase dissonance.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

A VPN is one of several security tools that are now widely used by businesses/organisations and individuals. There is a wide choice available, and although it seems a fairly simple operation to sign up to one and start using it, making the wrong choice of VPN tool could potentially have serious consequences. Assessing just how good a particular VPN can, in reality, be quite complicated and time-consuming. Online measuring tools and apps can provide a reasonable idea, although they can also lack transparency and reliability. For many users, it’s a case of looking at different online comparisons or sticking with/switching to trusted, paid-for brands, or going with personal recommendations.

Your browser may have a Password Manager but sometimes an issue (e.g., conflicting extensions) may cause the browser not to save or remember your passwords. Here’s how to fix the issue for popular browsers Chrome and Edge:

For Google Chrome:

– Open the Chrome menu (the three dots top right) and select ‘Settings’.

– Select ‘Autofill’ on the sidebar.

– Choose the option labelled ‘Passwords’ (left side of the Settings screen).

– Turn on the ‘Offer to save passwords’ switch.

For Microsoft Edge:

– Open the Edge menu (the three dots top right) and select ‘Settings’.

– Select ‘Passwords’.

– Turn on the ‘Offer to save passwords’ switch.

Nanjing’s government-backed Purple Mountain Laboratories claims to have made a 6G breakthrough by recording the fastest real-time wireless communication speed ever recorded.

For reference, 6G is likely to be around 50 times faster than 5G, which itself is around 20 times faster than 4G. Whilst this is very approximate, this could mean that a film that may take (say) 7 minutes to download via contemporary 4G would take 6 seconds with 5G (the newest standard currently being rolled out) and circa 0.12 seconds with 6G.

Highest Ever Reported

Working in collaboration with Southeast University, Pengcheng Laboratory, Fudan University, and China Mobile, the lab claims to have achieved a single-wavelength net rate of 103.125 Gbps and a dual-wavelength terahertz wireless transmission (in a lab environment) with a net rate of 206.25 Gbits/sec. As well as being the highest transmission terahertz real-time wireless communication ever publicly reported, this has the potential to increase the speed of 5G transfers, which are already 20x faster than previous standards

What Does This Mean?

Purple Mountain has said that this terahertz frequency band (300GHz~3THz), is considered to be the foundation of 6G mobile communications. The implications of the lab achieving a speed/wireless transmission rate this high could be:

– The replacement of the existing mobile optical fibre network, reducing the amount of data centre cables and power costs, and integrating with the existing optical fibre network to bring ultra-high speed outdoor and indoor wireless access.

– Installation on satellites, drones, and airships to help boost wireless communication between satellite clusters, the sky, and the Earth, or between separate satellites.

6G

6G is expected to be around 50 times faster than 5G with faster data rates and lower latencies. Even though 5G wireless technology is still only just being rolled out in many countries, 6G is expected to be its successor. Huawei Technologies Co estimates that 6G will enter the market around 2030 but an agreement is still to be reached on the technical standards that could support 6G frequencies, signal modulations, and waveforms.

Others Testing 6G

Purple Mountain Laboratories is not the only one to be testing 6G and claiming breakthroughs. Back in August, for example, LG, in partnership with Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute in Germany, claimed to be the first company to successfully transmit data across 6G outdoors. Also, back in June, a Samsung prototype was reported to have demonstrated successful 6G data transmission on terahertz (THz)/6G frequencies.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For UK businesses, it’s likely to be frustrating that 5G hasn’t been successfully rolled out yet and there’s already news of the development of its successor 6G and how businesses in other countries (e.g. China) look set to be able to benefit from it. In global terms, it is of course good news that there have been breakthroughs in wireless technology that could, in several years, bring many advantages. Lack of agreement, however, on standards to support 6G frequencies or any kind of official road map for 6G are also challenges to businesses being able to start using and benefitting via 6G any time soon.