If you would like to have better control of the volume levels of individual apps that you have open on Windows 10 this can easily be done via the settings (Sound) section and the hidden ‘Volume Mixer’. Here’s how:
Using (Sound) Settings
– Click on the Start button and select ‘Settings’ or type settings into the search field next to the Start button.
– Select ‘Settings’ > ‘System’ > ‘Sound’.
– Scroll down (right-hand pane) to ‘Advanced sound options’ and select ‘App Volume and device preferences.
Here you can adjust the master volume and the volume of the apps that you have open and systems sounds as a percentage of the master volume.
Using The volume Mixer
– Right-mouse click over the sound symbol (speaker) on the taskbar.
– Select ‘Open Volume Mixer’. Any apps that are open and are making a sound will be visible in the volume mixer.
– Slide the volume sliders to adjust the volume output, or you can choose to mute apps completely.

Microsoft has announced that its PowerPoint Presenter Coach is now available on all platforms.

Presenter Coach

Presenter Coach, first introduced in PowerPoint for the web, helps the user to practice their presentation skills. The app utilises AI to give users useful feedback on their pace, use of monotone pitch, use of filler words, poor grammar, lack of originality, use of sensitive phrases, and more while they rehearse their presentations. Also, at the end of each rehearsal, Presenter Coach gives the user a Summary Report which highlights the important pieces of feedback to give valuable, practical guidance, thereby showing the user exactly how to improve their presentation skills and become a confident presenter.

Available On All Platforms

Whereas PowerPoint Presenter Coach was only previously available on the web, Microsoft has now announced that it is now available on all platforms – the web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.  This gives users total flexibility about when and where they use it (e.g. it can now be used on the go).

3 New Critiques

Microsoft says that in addition to making its PowerPoint Presenter Coach available on all platforms it has also been given three new ‘critiques’. These are:

– A new capability that leverages the video camera to give a user feedback on their body language.

– A feature that identifies and lists repetitive language i.e., the words and phrases that a person may use too frequently. Presenter Coach then offers a list of synonyms that could be switched with them in the next presentation to keep the audience more engaged with the subject matter.

– Advice about correct pronunciation of words used during the rehearsal of a presentation.

Privacy

For those concerned about privacy on the app, Microsoft says that Presenter Coach does not save any video or audio data from rehearsal presentations.

Recently

Recently Microsoft has been announcing new features to help its ‘Teams’ remote/collaborative working platform compete with other platforms like slack and Zoom which became particularly popular during the lockdown restrictions.  One other service that’s recently been introduced by the tech giant and uses AI (like Presenter Coach) is a Custom Neural Voice, Text-to-Speech (TTS) feature in Azure Cognitive Services which allows companies to develop their own custom ‘brand voice’.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Presenter Coach has already proven itself to be a fresh, useful feature on desktop and as part of several improvements Microsoft made to 365 it’s provided a whole new dimension to PowerPoint which is a popular business program that many thought needed a lift.  Making Presenter Coach available on all platforms gives it extra value, relevance, and flexibility as it enables it to be used on the go which is likely to appeal to many business users.
Lockdown restrictions and social distancing have also made it difficult for users to test their presentation in front of audiences and other contributors (colleagues and friends), so having an expert ‘coach’ on hand at all times could prove particularly helpful to users at this current time.

This story also illustrates how AI is being introduced more into standard programs in ways that adds real value to users and prolongs the commercial life of those programs as well as creating new opportunities for even more innovation.

Google’s real-time Live Captions feature is now available to anyone using a Chrome web browser instead of just for Pixel phone users.

Live Captions

Live Captions is an accessibility feature that uses machine learning to generate (on-device) real-time captions for videos or audio. The feature enables those in a noisy environment, trying to keep the volume down, or those who are deaf or hard of hearing, to follow along with whatever content they are watching.

Live captions had previously been a feature on (Android) Pixel 4 phones (2019), and in August 2020 Google extended Live Caption for Calls on the Pixel 2, 3, 3a, 4 and 4a.

Now on Chrome Everywhere

Now Chrome users on any device can enable Live Caption and generate real-time captions for media with audio on the browser. The feature works across social and video sites, podcasts and radio content, personal video libraries (e.g. Google Photos), embedded video players, and most web-based video or audio chat services.

Google says that Live Captions currently supports English and is available globally on the newest release of Chrome on Windows, Mac, and Linux devices.  The feature will also be coming soon to ChromeOS.

Enabling Live Captions

To turn on Live Captions in desktop, Chrome users need to go to Settings, click on the Advanced section, and go to the Accessibility section and switch the ‘Live Caption’ toggle to ‘on’.

Other Accessibility Features

Back in October (National Disability Employment Awareness Month), Google highlighted many other new and existing accessibility features in Chrome Browser and Chrome OS. These included the ability to change the cursor to improve its visibility on Chrome OS, change the background text in select-to-speak to make it easier to focus on the spoken text, as well as Voice Switching to change the screen reader’s voice based on the language of the text being read in the ChromeVox screen reader.  Google also highlighted the feature that enables users to change the size of everything on the website they visit (content and font sizes), zoom, and magnify feature for the entire screen/specific parts of the screen, and a number of useful extensions.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

One billion people, or 15 per cent of the world’s population, have some form of a disability (The World Bank, Disability Inclusion Overview), and 466 million people in the world are deaf or hard of hearing.  It makes financial sense, therefore, for businesses, like Google, to reach an additional 15 per cent of people and improve ROI. Also, inclusivity and meeting the needs of diverse populations is a good business strategy today, especially for a global business that deals in large numbers.  Given that this feature had already proved itself on the phone version of the browser it was only a short step to introduce it to desktop and obtain a big boost in value and good publicity for Google. Incorporating accessibility features of this kind in services is not only good for revenue, reputation, and user convenience, but it also helps fulfil legal obligations and can be another source of competitive advantage.

This feature also has applications beyond serving those with hearing challenges as it recognises that many modern human and situational environments can be noisy or require people to be quiet while working and/or browsing the Internet, and that people may even be doing two things ate once (e.g. listening to music and browsing the Internet). This gives the feature even greater value to a wide range of users.

The Ransomware Threat Report 2021 from Unit 42 shows that the average amount paid by ransomware victims tripled from 2019 to 2020.

Ransomware

Ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts the important files on a computer and the user (often a business/organisation) is given a ransom demand, the payment of which should mean that the encrypted files can be released. In reality, some types of ransomware delete many important files anyway and paying the ransom does not guarantee that access to files will be returned to normal.

The Palo Alto Networks, Unit 42 Ransomware Threat Report shows that the average ransom paid by a victim organisation in Europe, the US and Canada trebled from $115,123 (£83,211) in 2019 to $312,493 (£225,871) in 2020.  The report showed that, over the same period, the highest value ransom paid doubled from $5m (£3.6m) to $10m (£7.2m), and the highest extortion demand grew from $15m (£10.8m) to $30m (£22m).

Why?

Some of the main reasons for the increase in ransomware attacks and the increase in the amounts paid to attackers are thought to include:

– Attempts to exploit vulnerabilities/opportunities created by remote working.

– Businesses not having effective data backup procedures in place (no recoverable, workable backup).

– Costs of downtime perceived as being greater than the cost of paying the ransom. Paying the ransom, however, very often does not lead to release of the files.

– The growth of ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), where criminals can buy or act as affiliates and rent subscription-based ransomwares (on the Dark Web) from which they earn a percentage of each ransom payment. For criminals, this method offers a low technical barrier to entry and a high affiliate earning potential.

– A growth in a more focused and thorough kind of ransomware attack where victims are researched, and their networks are compromised in advance.

Key Targets

Some of the main targets of ransomware attacks last year noted by the report include healthcare organisations, leading pharmaceutical companies, and COVID-19 vaccine research and development organisations. For example, last October, Philadelphia company eResearchTechnology (which makes software used to try and develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments) was hit by a ransomware attack.  Employees were locked out of systems and the attack had a knock-on effect that was felt by IQVIA, the research organisation helping with AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine trial, and Bristol Myers Squibb, a drug-maker involved in the development of a quick test for COVID-19.

Double Extortion

As if these types of targeted attacks haven’t been dangerous enough, the report highlights how so-called ‘double extortion’ attacks have been on the rise.  This is where, in addition to demanding a ransom to release data files, the criminal also threatens to leak some of the files/data unless the ransom is paid.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Ransomware attacks tend to arrive in phishing emails, so it is important that staff are aware of the dangers of clicking on suspicious links. Also, staff should be wary of Microsoft Office email attachments that advise the enabling of macros to view the content, a this can be a sign of a ransomware email.

This story also highlights the importance of making sure that data is regularly and securely backed up (to a cloud-based service) and that disaster recovery and business continuity plans have procedures for ransomware attacks built-in to them. Businesses should also note that paying the ransom is a high-risk option and certainly offers no guarantee that any files will be unlocked/returned.

Other precautions that businesses can take to guard against these kinds of attacks include keeping antivirus software and Operating Systems up to date and patched (and re-starting the computer at least once per week), using a modern and secure browser, using detection and recovery software e.g., Microsoft 365 protection and Windows Security, and storing files on cloud services e.g. OneDrive/Google Drive, IDrive, or whatever work-based cloud file storage systems employees are required to use.

Fake news has become pernicious and widespread so in this article, we look at how the search engines are facing up to the enormous challenge of separating the real from the fake.

Challenges

Those trying to combat the spread of fake news face a common set of challenges, such as those identified by CEO of OurNews, Richard Zack, which include:

– There are people (and state-sponsored actors) world-wide who are making it harder for people to know what to believe (e.g. through spreading fake news and misinformation, and distorting stories).

– Many people don’t trust the media or don’t trust fact-checkers.

– Simply presenting facts doesn’t change peoples’ minds.

Other challenges include:

-‘Confirmation bias’ in humans means that we like to read stories that confirm our existing beliefs. This means that there will always be belief in many fake news stories.

– Young people (large users of social media) may be more susceptible to seeing and believing fake news according to research (Stanford’s Graduate School of Education). Most 18-to-24 year-olds consume news via social media.  For example, half of teens (54 per cent) get news from social media, and 50 per cent get news from YouTube (CommonSense 2019) and research in 2020 found that over a quarter of 18-to 24 year-olds get their new from Instagram, 19 per cent from Snapchat, and 6 per cent from TikTok. With social media platforms also battling against a tide of fake news, this is a real challenge that extends beyond search engines.

– Fake news is attractive and often seems more interesting than truth.

– People find it difficult to spot fake news.

Search Engine Algorithms Promoting Fake News?

Another less obvious challenge that some search analysts have highlighted how search engine algorithms may promote sensational fake news above real stories and may also, therefore, be profiting from showing them.  The thinking behind it is that people are simply drawn to click on links to stories / information that look sensational or controversial. When the links are clicked-on, this tells the search engine algorithm that the link was relevant to the search query (i.e. the search engine algorithm awards it ‘link relevance’).  If this link is clicked on enough times by others and receives more link relevance, it will move up the search engine rankings and be given greater prominence, even though the page content may contain fake news. This positive feedback loop can, therefore, ensure that even a fake story can keep getting served, clicked upon, and ultimately become circulated and believed as truth.

Making Money

In addition to getting revenue from adverts, search engines also track user behaviour and sell the data through real-time bidding and ad-driven search engines are able to show better metrics if they reward clicks on enticing links. This mean that links to sensational fake news stories and videos can drive (and be good for) search engine revenue rather than for the user who ends up reading fake stories. In short, it can be in a search engine company’s interest to simply show users what they want to read or watch, some of which may be fake.

What Are Search Engines Doing About The Problem?

Taking Google as the main example, search engines are keen to tell users what they are doing to combat the problem of fake news.

How Google Fights Disinformation – 3 Principles

Back in 2019, when the impact of fake news had been felt both in US elections and in wider society in what had been dubbed a ‘post-truth era’, Google (in its ‘How Google Fights Disinformation’ White Paper) laid out three foundational principles for how it would be tackling the spread of fake news / misinformation in Google Search, Google News, YouTube, and the company’s advertising systems going forward. These are:

1. Make Quality Count.  Google says that its “ranking algorithms” treat websites and content creators fairly and evenly, but they also ensure the usefulness of Google’s services, as measured by user testing, and don’t foster the ideological viewpoints of the individuals that build or audit them.

2. Counteract Malicious Actors. For this, Google admits that “Algorithms cannot determine whether a piece of content on current events is true or false, nor can they assess the intent of its creator just by reading what’s on a page”.  However, Google policies across Google Search, Google News, YouTube, and its advertising products clearly show what is prohibited and company says that it has “invested significant resources” in combatting deliberate ‘spam’ practices designed to deceive and get greater visibility for content.

3. Give Users More Context.  This involves Google users being shown “Knowledge” or “Information” Panels in Google Search and YouTube, providing high-level facts about a person or issue, using labels to show that content has been fact-checked, as well as offering users the chance to see “Breaking News”, “Top News” shelves, and “Developing News” information panels.

Google also says that it has teamed up with outside news experts and dedicated “significant resources” to supporting quality journalism. For example, this includes launching the Google News Initiative (GNI) in 2018, participating in and providing financial support to the Trust Project (http://thetrustproject.org/), partnering with Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), and supporting the work of researchers who explore the issues of disinformation and trust in journalism.

Bing

Back in 2019, a Stanford Cyber Policy Center report found that Bing’s SERPs contained dubious information more often than Google’s, and that “Bing returns disinformation and misinformation at a significantly higher rate than Google does”.

Nevertheless, Bing appears to have been tackling fake news / disinformation / misinformation in similar ways to Google.  For example, Bing introduced fact-checking labels as far back as 2017.

In April 2020, as part of an announcement about how it was promoting trusted information in response to COVID-19, Microsoft outlined many of the ways that it tackles misinformation generally.  For example, Microsoft highlighted how curated resources were being used across Bing, LinkedIn, Microsoft News and Microsoft Advertising, and how Bing could prioritise trusted news sources and could use algorithmic defences against certain types of misinformation.

COVID-19 Medical Misinformation Challenge

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the dangers of fake news into even sharper focus as medical misinformation became a very serious threat. To help counter this, Google announced (2020) that it was investing $6.5 million in funding global fact checkers to focus on coronavirus misinformation.  Google’s YouTube also introduces a policy to tackle any content that contradicts WHO advice.

Also, in response to health misinformation (COVID-19), Microsoft created COVID-19 information hubs in 53 markets globally, with an experienced team editing content from more than 4,500 of its “trusted” news brands.

Automation and AI

Many people now consider automation and AI to be an approach and a technology that is ‘intelligent’, fast, and scalable enough to start to tackle the vast amount of fake news that is being produced and circulated.  For example, Google and Microsoft have been using AI to automatically assess the truth of articles.  Also, initiatives like the Fake News Challenge (http://www.fakenewschallenge.org/) seeks to explore how AI technologies, particularly machine learning and natural language processing, can be employed to combat fake news and supports the idea that AI technologies hold promise for significantly automating parts of the procedure human fact-checkers use to determine if a story is real or a hoax.

However, the human-written rules underpinning AI, and how AI is ‘trained’ can also lead to bias. Whilst AI can do many amazing things, it is also not yet at the stage where it is able to exercise anything like human judgement as this is based on past experience and gathered knowledge.  This means that AI is not yet the single main way to tackle fake news at scale, although it is certainly helping.

Looking Ahead

Whether search engines benefit from fake news content or not, the problem of the spread of fake news goes way beyond search engines.  Social media companies are also involved in an ongoing battle to tackle the problem, as are other national and global new media outlets of all kinds. Much of the focus of the fake news problem has actually been on social media companies (e.g. Facebook), who have also introduced their own measures to tackle it (e.g. fact checking and introducing their own curated news).  The fact is that to tackle fake news involves wide co-operation, collaboration, and initiatives between multiple entities such as fact-checkers, civil society organisations, researchers, media and tech companies, government agencies and more to bring about a bigger societal change in the right direction.

If you would like to sell a phone, laptop, tablet, or other device, but would like to know how to completely wipe it first, here’s how:

Firstly, make sure you’ve backed up things like your photos, other important files, and WhatsApp chats. Next:

Windows Laptops

– Type “Reset” into the Start search box and select “Reset this PC”. If this option doesn’t show, look in “Settings” under the “Recovery” tab.

– To wipe all storage drives, on the next page, click “Change Settings” and change the Data Erasure slider to “On”.

MacBooks and Macs

– Reset the system and press the Command + R keys together to load the recovery menu.

– Select “Disk Utility” (the system drives will be displayed).

– Right-click and select Delete on each applicable drive apart from the MacOS install partition.

– Return to the Recovery menu or reset and use the Command+R shortcut from a fresh start-up, and select Install MacOS.

Google Chromebooks

– Press Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and “R” together from the login screen to bring up the “Powerwash” box, or, from “Settings”, select “Advanced” and scroll down to “Powerwash”.

iPhones and iPads

– Go to the “Settings” menu, then the General sub-menu.

– Use the Reset option, and the “Erase All Content and Settings” control. To do this, you will need to use your Apple ID password.
Android Phones and Tablets

– Go to the “System” part of “Settings” and find ‘Reset Options’.

– Choose “Erase All Data” (Factory Reset), or similar and follow the prompts. You will need your unlock PIN.