INFOLINE

EDITORIAL BOARD

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Chief Patron : Thiru A.K.Ilango B.com., M.B.A., L.L.B.,

Correspondent

Patron : Dr. N.Raman M.Com., M.B.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.,

Principal

Editor in Chief : Mr. S.Muruganantham M.Sc., M.Phil.,

Head of the Department

STAFF ADVISOR

Ms. P.Kalarani M.Sc., M.C.A., M.Phil.,

Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Technology and Information Technology

STAFF EDITOR

Ms. C.Kalaivani M.Sc. (CT)., M.Phil.,

Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Technology and Information Technology

STUDENT EDITORS

B.Akilesh III B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

V.Mohan dass III B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

R.K.Kiruthika Shivani III B.Sc. (Information Technology)

S.Arunkumar III B.Sc. (Information Technology)

B.Mano Pretha II B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

A.Uthaya Sriram II B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

P.Deepika Rani II B.Sc. (Information Technology)

R.Pradeep Rajan II B.Sc. (Information Technology)

D.Harini I B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

V.A.Jayendiran I B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

S.Karunya I B.Sc. (Information Technology)

S.Ranjith Kumar I B.Sc. (Information Technology)

CONTENTS

Godaddy Introduces Super Easy Website Builder 1

Microsoft Release Windows Defender Security Center 2

Predictions for the Future Programming 3

Google Go-Powered Object Storage Server Offers Open Source AWS Alternative 9

SanDisk‟s New Thumb Drive 10

The Best Office Apps for Android 11

Home Network Protection 15

Chrome, Firefox Start Warning Users for Insecure HTTP Logins 16

Backup Your PC for Free (Backup Everything on your Drive) 17

Seagate's Roadmap with 14TB, 16TB Hard Drives 20

Facebook Launches Fake News Reporting Tool 21

Steps to Eliminate Insider Threats 22

5G Modem 24

Artificial Intelligence and Data Science 25

10 New UI Features in Windows 10 26

1

GoDADDY INTRODUCES SUPER EASY

WEBSITE BUILDER

GoDaddy is a monster.With more than

14 million customers worldwide and more than

63 million domain names under management, it

is an exaggeration, but an understandable one,

when GoDaddy calls itself the place people

come to name their idea, build a professional

website, attract customers and manage their

work. The only metric that matters for a

company that has such a singular focus as

GoDaddy is the rate of growth of its hosting

customers.

So, if you‟re GoDaddy and have a

voracious appetite for new customers, you‟re

keen to consider anything you can do to get

new customers on board. Whether it is

incredibly expensive or something simpler, like

giving a service away for free to gain new

customers, GoDaddy is on it.

GoDaddy is announcing GoCentral, a

new service that aims to enable customers to

build a “professional looking website” in under

an hour.

GoCentral is more than just a website

builder, however. After all, there are a huge

number of those already, including many who

offer free hosting, which is obviously toxic to

GoDaddy's real business. GoCentral, as well as

the site builder stuff, includes marketing and e-

commerce tools that aim to really deliver the

entire package not just a website, but a

platform for e-commerce.

The way it works is that GoDaddy has

templatized website creation. They‟ve

classified over 1,500 different industries, from

plumbers to hairstylists to soccer coaches.

Users type in their name and industry and

GoCentral generates a nearly complete website,

including relevant sections and stock imagery.

As one would expect in this multi-device and

mobile centric world, sites created with

GoCentral are fully responsive across phones,

tablets and computers.

GoDaddy is quick to point out the

efficiency and effectiveness gains that

GoCentral delivers.“Traditional DIY site

builders got it wrong by forcing people to focus

their time on tweaking page layout instead of

generating results,” said GoDaddy general

manager and senior vice president Lauren

Antonoff. “Many small businesses struggle to

attract visitors to their sites, and the little traffic

they do get is largely coming from mobile

2

devices. It fundamentally changing the

approach by creating a mobile friendly

experience that lets customers focus on

achieving their goals, rather than worry about

site designs. GoCentral is unique in that it helps

customers get noticed, reach audiences

wherever they are, and drive real results,

including sales.”

MyPOV

The reality is that simply building an

online presence for a business isn‟t a massive

hurdle even with slightly more complex tools,

building a site is far easier today than back in

the days when people had to learn HTML. The

question then remains whether these somewhat

generic sites really deliver the results that

businesses need. If the real driver is getting

seen, then one would think that by creating an

ability for millions of additional entities to

create somewhat vanilla sites will reduce the

potential impact for everyone.

S.GOKUL

I B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

MICROSOFT TO RELEASE WINDOWS

DEFENDER SECURITY CENTER

Microsoft has announced that as part of

the Creator‟s update will introduce a new

security service called Windows Defender

Security Center, which is designed to act as a

dashboard for all of your security features,

including third-party security. The Security

Center is already available to Windows

Insiders using preview builds of Windows 10.

Though Windows Defender has never

been a top-flight performer in detecting

malware compared to vendors like Trend

Micro and Kaspersky. Microsoft has stuck with

it, and it does make for a decent second line of

defense. With the Security Center, Microsoft is

expanding beyond mere malware detection into

overall system security.

In a blog post outlining the new features,

Rob Lefferts, partner director in the Windows

and devices group, security and enterprise,

outlined what he called “five pillars” that give

you control and visibility of your device

3

security, health and online safety experiences.

They are:

Virus and threat protection that works with

third-party AV software. If you do not have

a recognized third-party provider, Windows

Defender Antivirus will take on the job of

protecting your system until an AV app is

installed. You are also able to launch your

third-party AV protection app directly from

this screen.

Device performance and health provides a

single view of your latest Windows

updates, drivers, battery life and storage

capacity. Additionally, you have the option

to start fresh with a clean install of

Windows using the Refresh Windows

feature.

Firewall and network protection provides

information on the network connections

and active Windows Firewall settings, as

well as links to network troubleshooting

information.

App and browser control allows you to

adjust settings for SmartScreen for apps

and browsers, helping you be more

informed and stay safer online by warning

you of potential malicious sites, downloads

and unrecognized apps and files from the

Internet. Microsoft did not specify if this

was an Edge-only feature or if it would

work with other browsers like Google

Chrome.

Family options offers an easy way to

connect to the family options available

online, such as parental controls, options

for setting up good screen time habits, and

setting up activity reports of your kids‟

online activity and controlling the

purchasing apps and games.

The Security Center also increases support

for Windows Hello, the facial recognition and

biometric feature that offers a different kind of

security, one that recognizes your face or

fingerprint.

Our goal with the new Windows Defender

Security Center is to help you become more

informed and make safety simple.

S.DELEEP KUMAR

I B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE

PROGRAMMING

The only thing that flies faster than time

is the progress of technology. Once after lunch,

4

a chip-designing friend excused himself

quickly with the deft explanation that Moore‟s

Law meant that he had to make his chip set

0.67 percent faster each week, even while on

vacation. If he didn‟t, the chips wouldn‟t

double in speed every two years. Now that

2017 is here, it‟s time to take stock of the

technological changes ahead, if only to help

you know where to place your bets in building

programming skills for the future. From the

increasing security headache of the internet of

things to machine learning everywhere, the

future of programming keeps getting harder to

predict.

The cloud will defeat Moore’s Law

There are naysayers who claim the chip

companies have hit a wall. They‟re no longer

doubling chip speed every two years as they

did during the halcyon years of the ‟80s and

‟90s. Perhaps but it doesn‟t matter anymore

because the boundaries between chips are less

defined than ever.

In the past, the speed of the CPU in the

box on your desk mattered because, well, you

could only go as fast as the silicon hamster

inside could spin its wheel. Buying a bigger,

faster hamster every few years doubled your

productivity, too.

But now the CPU on your desk barely

displays information on the screen. Most of the

work is done in the cloud where it‟s not clear

how many hamsters are working on your job.

When you search Google, their massive cloud

could devote 10, 20, even 1,000 hamsters to

finding the right answer for you.

The challenge for programmers is

finding clever ways to elastically deploy just

enough computing power to each user‟s

problem so that the solution comes fast enough

and the user doesn‟t get bored and wander off

to a competitor‟s site. There‟s plenty of power

available. The cloud companies will let you

handle the crush of users, but you have to find

algorithms that work easily in parallel, then

arrange for the servers to work in synchrony.

IoT security will only get scarier

The Mirai botnet that unfolded in this

past fall was a wake-up call for programmers

who are creating the next generation of the

internet of things. These clever little devices

can be infected like any other computer, and

they can use their internet connection to wreak

havoc and let slip the dogs of war. And as

everyone knows, dogs can pretend to be

anyone on the internet.

The trouble is that the current supply

chain for gadgets doesn‟t have any mechanism

for fixing software. The lifecycle of a gadget

usually begins with a long trip from a

manufacturing plant to a warehouse and finally

to the user. It‟s not usual for up to 10 months to

unfold between assembly and first use. The

gadgets are shipped halfway around the world

over those long, lingering months. They sit in

5

boxes waiting in shipping containers. Then

they sit on pallets at big box stores or in

warehouses. By the time they‟re unpacked,

anything could have happened to them.

The challenge is keeping track of it all.

It‟s hard enough to update the batteries in the

smoke detectors every time the clocks change.

But now we‟ll have to wonder about our toaster

oven, our clothes dryer, and pretty much

everything in the house. Is the software up-to-

date? Have all the security patches been

applied? The number of devices is making it

harder to do anything intelligent about

monitoring the home network. There are more

than 30 devices with IP addresses connected to

my wireless router, and I know the identity of

only 24 of them. If I wanted to maintain a

smart firewall, I would go nuts opening up the

right ports for the right smart things.

Giving these devices the chance to run

arbitrary code is a blessing and a curse. If

programmers want to perform clever tasks and

let users have maximum flexibility, the

platforms should be opened. That‟s how the

maker revolution and open source creativity

flourishes. But this also gives virus writers

more opportunity than ever before. All they

need to do is find one brand of widget that

hasn‟t updated a particular driver viola, they‟ve

found millions of widgets primed to host bots.

Video will dominate the web in new ways

When the HTML standards committee

started embedding video tags into HTML itself,

they probably didn‟t have grand plans of

remaking entertainment. They probably only

wanted to solve the glitches from plugins. But

the basic video tags respond to JavaScript

commands, and that makes them essentially

programmable.

That is a big change. In the past, most

videos have been consumed very passively.

You sit down at the couch, push the play

button, and see what the video‟s editor decided

you should see. Everyone watching that cat

video sees the cats in the same sequence

decided by the cat video‟s creator. Sure, a few

fast-forward but videos head to their

conclusion with as much regularity as Swiss

trains.

JavaScript‟s control of video is limited,

but the slickest web designers are figuring

clever ways to integrate video with the rest of

the web page in a seamless canvas. This opens

up the possibility for the user to control how

the narrative unfolds and interact with the

video. No one can be sure what the writers,

artists, and editors will imagine but they‟ll

require programming talent to make it happen.

Many of the slickest websites already

have video tightly running in clever spots.

Soon they‟ll all want moving things. It won‟t

be enough to put an IMG tag with a JPEG file.

6

You‟ll need to grab video and deal with the

standards issues that have fragmented the

browser world.

Consoles will continue to replace PCs

It‟s hard to be mad at gaming consoles.

The games are great, and the graphics are

amazing. They‟ve built great video cards and

relatively stable software platforms for us to

relax in the living room and dream about

shooting bad guys or throwing a football.

Living room consoles are only the

beginning. The makers of items for the rest of

the house are following the same path. They

could have chosen an open source ecosystem,

but the manufacturers are building their own

closed platforms.

This fragments the marketplace and

makes it harder for programmers to keep

everything straight. What runs on one light

switch won‟t run on another. The hair dryer

may speak the same protocol as the toaster, but

it probably won‟t. It's more work for

programmers on getting up to speed and fewer

opportunities to reuse our work.

Machine learning will become the new

standard feature

When kids in college take a course

called “Data Structures,” they get to learn what

life was like when their grandparents wrote

code and couldn‟t depend on the existence of a

layer called “the database.” Real programmers

had to store, sort, and join tables full of data,

without the help of Oracle, MySQL, or

MongoDB.

Machine learning algorithms are a few

short years away from making that jump. Right

now programmers and data scientists need to

write much of their own code to perform

complex analysis. Soon, languages like R and

some of the cleverest business intelligence

tools will stop being special and start being a

regular feature in most software stacks. They‟ll

go from being four or five special slides in the

PowerPoint sales deck to a little rectangle in

the architecture drawing that‟s taken for

granted.

It won‟t happen overnight, and it‟s not

clear exactly what shape it will be, but it‟s clear

that more and more business plans depend on

machine learning algorithms finding the best

solutions.

UI design will get more complicated as PCs

continue to fade

Each day it seems like there is one

fewer reason for you to use a PC. Between the

rise of smartphones, living room consoles, and

the tablet, the only folks who still seem to cling

to PCs are office workers and students who

need to turn in an assignment.

This can be a challenge for

programmers. It used to be easy to assume that

7

software or website users would have a

keyboard and a mouse. Now many users don‟t

have either. Smartphone users are mashing

their fingers into a glass screen that barely has

room for all 26 letters. Console users are

pushing arrow keys on a remote.

Designing websites is getting trickier

because a touch event is slightly different from

a click event. Users have different amounts of

precision and screens vary greatly in size. It‟s

not easy to keep it all straight, and it‟s only

going to get worse in the years ahead.

The end of openness

The passing of the PC isn‟t only the

slow death of a particular form factor. It‟s the

dying of a particularly open and welcoming

marketplace. The death of the PC will be a

closing of possibilities.

When the PCs first shipped, a

programmer could compile code, copy it onto

disks, pop those disks into ziplock bags, and

the world could buy it. There was no middle

man, no gatekeeper, no stern central force

asking us to say, “Mother, may I?”

Consoles are tightly locked down. No

one gets into that marketplace without an

investment of capital. The app stores are a bit

more open, but they‟re still walled gardens that

limit what we can do. Sure, they are still open

to programmers who jump through the right

hoops but anyone who makes a false move can

be tossed. (Somehow they‟re always delaying

our apps while the malware slips through. This

distinction is important for open source. It‟s not

solely about selling floppy disks in baggies.

We‟re losing the ability to share code because

we‟re losing the ability to compile and run

code. The end of the PC is a big part of the end

of openness. For now, most of the people

reading this probably have a decent desktop

that can compile and run code, but that‟s

slowly changing.

Fewer people have the opportunity to

write code and share it. For all of the talk about

the need to teach the next generation to

program, there are fewer practical vectors for

open code to be distributed.

Autonomous transportation is here to stay

It‟s not cars alone. Some want to make

autonomous planes that aren‟t encumbered by

the need for roads. Others want to create

autonomous skateboards for very lightweight

travel. If it moves, some hacker has dreams of

telling it where to go.

Programmers won‟t control what

people see on the screen. They‟ll control where

people go and how they interact with the world.

And people are only part of the game. All of

our stuff will also move autonomously.

If you want dinner from a famous chef

downtown, an autonomous skateboard with a

heated chamber may bring it to your house. If

8

you want your lawn mowed, an autonomous

lawn mower will replace the neighborhood kid.

And programmers can use all of the

cool ideas they had during the first internet

revolution. If you thought pop-up ads were bad

on the internet, wait until programmers are paid

to divert your autonomous roller skates past the

kitchen vent of a new restaurant.

The law will find new limits

The ink was barely dry on the Bill of

Rights when debates over what it means for a

search of our papers to be reasonable began.

Now, more than 200 years later, we‟re still

arguing the details.

Changes in technology open up new

avenues for the law. A few years ago, the

Supreme Court decided that vehicle tracking

technology requires a warrant. But that‟s only

when the police plant the tracker in the car. No

one really knows what rules apply when

someone subpoenas the tracking data from

Waze, Google Maps, or any of the hundreds of

other apps that cache our locations.

What about influencing how the

machines operate? Its one thing to download

data, but it‟s frightfully tempting to change the

data, too. Is it fair for the police (or private

actors) to forge documents, headers, or bits?

Does it matter if the targets are true terrorists or

simply people who‟ve parked too long in a no-

parking spot without feeding the meter?

These are only a few of the big

questions for developers in the years ahead.

Software architects need to anticipate these

issues during design. They need to think of

questions around privacy and the law before

any code is written. If they don‟t, there‟s a

good chance the company will get blindsided

by these issues later conceivably at massive

scale.Moreover, code itself is a version of law.

Programmers define what software can and

can‟t do.

Containers will rule

In theory, we shouldn‟t need containers.

Your executable should simply run, and the

operating system should manage permissions

and scheduling so that all the executables get

along. Alas, that dream is receding faster than

ever. Fewer and fewer executables live alone.

Many need differing versions of various

libraries or other special accommodations.

Even “run anywhere” technologies like Java

get into trouble because there are so many

different versions of the virtual machine.

Good VMs can fix this, but they‟re fat.

Containers are skinny and lightweight. They‟re

easy to use and thus impossible not to love. We

see more and more containers at all levels of

the enterprise, and it‟s hard to resist their

charms.

S.MOWNICA

I B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

9

GOOGLE GO-POWERED OBJECT

STORAGE SERVER OFFERS OPEN

SOURCE AWS ALTERNATIVE

There‟s a new object storage server that

has been introduced as an open source

alternative to Amazon S3 and other API-

compatible services. Minio, written in Go and

available under the Apache license, allows

unstructured data (up to 5TB per object) to be

stored on a pool of drives of your choosing.

Included in the box are protections against data

loss and an event-notification system that can

be used to build AWS Lambda-like

functionality.

A guiding principle of the service is to

keep things simple, because “only simple

things scale,” Minio says. The standalone

binary for Minio‟s 64-bit Windows server is

23.5MB; the client is 10MB. It can run on a

single node or can gang together pools of

drives across a cluster of machines. The service

runs on a variety of OS platforms: Linux,

MacOS, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, and in

theory any other platform that supports the Go

runtime.

Minio can be accessed using the

program‟s own command-line utility or any

Amazon S3-compatible CLI or SDK. The

documentation for Minio outlines various

recipes for using the server in conjunction with

other services or clients. Those running

FreeNAS, a FreeBSD-based storage system

that supports ZFS, can run Minio directly on

FreeNAS by way of the FreeBSD version of

the server.

If you want to build software on top of

Mino, SDKs are included for JavaScript, Java,

Python, and Go, and the documentation

contains example apps for each of those

languages. As a bonus, there‟s an example

photo-browsing app written in Swift that plugs

into a REST service written in Java. Another

example app shows how to upload files from a

browser without exposing one‟s S3 credentials,

using only a few dozen lines of code.

One thing common to all the language

SDKs is an interface to Minio‟s event

notification service. According to Minio, this

makes it possible to write lambda-style apps

that respond to events in the filesystem, and

hook notifications for “various popular

frameworks (AMQP, Elasticsearch, Redis,

NATS, WebHooks, Kafka and Postgres).”

Minio‟s creators stress its reliability. If

you have at least four drives in a pool, you can

shared data across those drives to prevent data

10

loss due to mechanical failure or random data

corruption.

Minio‟s sharding works on the object

level, rather than the drive level, which makes

it easier to recover a specific piece of data.

Minio‟s sharding works on the object level,

rather than the drive level, which makes it

easier to recover a specific piece of data. One

downside is that drive pools currently

cannot be larger than 16 drives, although “you

may run multiple instances of Minio server on

different ports” to get around this.

Building credible alternatives to

Amazon‟s cloud offerings has been a theme

across many open source projects compatible

with AWS de facto standards. The hard part

isn‟t making new incarnations of those

standards available, it‟s giving people a reason

not to embrace Amazon. That‟s a tough sell

given the cloud giant‟s presence, its ever-

expanding roster of offerings, and the loyalty

of its users. Amazon provides many incentives

to set up shop within its walls and stay there.

Amazon provides many incentives to set up

shop within its walls and stay there. People are

always looking for services that complement,

rather than replace, their Amazon workloads.

Minio could be one piece in such a puzzle.

S.DHINAKAR

I B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

SANDISK’S NEW THUMB DRIVE

Western Digital's SanDisk division

announced its shipping its fastest USB flash

drive ever the 256GB SanDisk Extreme PRO

USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive. The new

drive sports data read speeds of up to 420MBps

and write speeds of 380MBps, which are close

to internal solid-state drive (SSD) speeds. The

company said a user could transfer a full-

length, 4K movie to the drive in less than 15

seconds using a USB 3.1 computer port.

With a price tag of $180 ($1.42 per

gigabyte), the company is marketing the high-

end thumb drive to creative professionals, tech

enthusiasts, "or anyone who creates and shares

massive files." The thumb drive features a

new, clean design with an aluminum metal

casing and a retractable connector.

The 256GB SanDisk Extreme PRO

USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive will be

available Amazon.com and Best Buy. "The

combination of SSD performance and a

compact USB form factor offers the ultimate

performance and convenience for moving files

easily and quickly," Sven Rathjen, vice

11

president of marketing for WD's Client

Solutions Business Unit, said in a statement.

"With its increased capacity and blazing

speeds, the SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.1

Solid State Flash Drive is our sleekest, most

powerful SanDisk USB device yet."

The thumb drive also comes natively

with SanDisk's SecureAccess software, which

offers 128-bit file encryption and password

protection. The SanDisk Extreme PRO USB

3.1 Solid State Flash Drive is supported by

Windows Vista and higher, and Mac OS X

v10.6+ (a software download is required for

Mac systems).

V.MOHAN DASS

III B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

THE BEST OFFICE APPS FOR ANDROID

Google Docs/Sheets/Slides

Google's mobile office suite is lean and

mean, with a distinct focus on cloud-centric

work connected to the Google ecosystem.

Word processing

Docs' no-frills interface makes viewing

and editing documents easy as can be as long

as your needs are relatively basic. You'll have

no trouble finding paragraph- and text-

formatting options, spell-check and word-count

functions, or commands for inserting simple

tables into a page (though I do mean simple

don't expect options for styling the table,

splitting or merging cells, or even shading

rows).

The main document editor has unusual

extras, too, like an Explore function that

automatically looks up images and research

related to topics in your document. Even on a

phone regardless of your Android version you

can view that info in a window alongside your

work and insert snippets directly into your

document.

What's missing, however, are more

advanced word processing features that some

business users may expect such as custom

bullet formatting, headers and footers,

columns, and footnotes.

12

Docs uses its own proprietary document

format by default, but you can view and edit

standard Word files within the app, which for

the most part, works fine. Formatting is

generally retained, and I've had no issues

making edits, then saving a document back in

the standard DOCX format. Even documents

sent to me with Microsoft's Track Changes

formatting in place work flawlessly with Docs:

I can review edits, accept or reject changes, and

make my own edits within the usual Track

Changes parameters. That wasn't possible with

Docs on Android in the recent past (curiously,

it still doesn't seem possible with the web

version of the app).

One area where Google's apps excel is

in the realm of sharing and collaboration: In

Docs, you can export any document into a

standard DOCX or PDF format and share it

directly to email or any other app, but you can

also invite anyone to view a document with a

simple web link that'll work in any browser,

without the need for any specific local

software. If you want your colleague to be able

to edit the document, it's simply a matter of

checking one extra box in your sharing

invitation.

As long as the person has a Google

account, he'll be able to work on the file with

you in real time with any changes he makes

showing up letter-by-letter on your screen as

they're typed. Since Docs always syncs changes

instantly and automatically, you can also access

a document yourself from multiple devices

simultaneously. As with the multiuser

collaboration, your edits will show up in real

time everywhere you're signed in.

Spreadsheet editing

Sheets, following Docs‟ lead, are fine

for basic functionality but more limited when it

comes to advanced elements. To its credit,

Sheets has become quite a bit better since our

last analysis. The app now handles tasks like

basic chart creation and cell freezing items that

were M.I.A. not long ago along with core

commands like cell merging, data validation,

and all the usual mathematical functions.

In a nice added touch, Sheets now

automatically puts a list of common

calculations at the bottom of the screen anytime

you select a group of cells with numbers giving

you a handy instant view of the figures' sum,

average, and so on.

For some users, all of that may be

enough especially when you consider the

convenience of Sheets' cloud-centric approach

and how effortless that makes it to move

13

between multiple platforms and devices. Like

Docs, Sheets is excellent when it comes to real-

time collaboration.

But for folks who need next-level

spreadsheet tools advanced cell styling,

sorting, the ability to insert images, or the

ability to create a wider range of charts from

your data Sheets still comes up short. I also

encountered instances where the app was

unable to open certain XLS files, saying it did

not support the format (despite the fact that the

app did open other XLS files without issue).

Those files included auto generated company

reports that had been sent to me within the past

few months so knowing Sheets can't handle

them is a bit of a problem.

Presentation editing

Google's Slides app has gotten

surprisingly decent for basic on-the-go

presentation work. The formerly bare-bones

app now has a diverse range of polished-

looking plug-and-play themes and templates

for professional presentation creation. It

supports speaker notes, as well as image,

shape, and text insertion and formatting.

Slides lacks some more advanced

presentation elements like transitions, and its

editing capabilities are generally more limited

than what other apps provide. But sticking with

Google's strengths, it is superb for

collaboration and has excellent built-in tools

for modern forms of presentation.

When you start a presentation, for

instance, you can opt to play it locally or to cast

it wirelessly to any Chromecast or Google

Cast-compatible device. You can also choose

to launch the presentation directly into a new

video call or meeting in Hangouts.

Slides have a clever system for

audience interaction, too: Its optional Q&A

feature puts a public web link at the top of your

presentation. Anyone watching can then pull up

that link to ask or vote on questions, which

then appear on your device for you to address.

Microsoft Word/Sheets/PowerPoint

If we were to issue a "Most Improved

Android Office Suite" award, Microsoft's latest

creation would absolutely take the cake.

Microsoft was inexcusably late to the Android

14

party, and its early efforts at Android-based

productivity apps were embarrassing at best.

Even in our last assessment a year and a half

ago, the apps suffered from a baffling lack of

polish which, for Microsoft in particular, was

rather hard to forgive.

Word processing

No two ways around it: Microsoft's

current Word Android app is an absolute

pleasure to use. Long time office users will be

delighted with its familiar

feel.

The UI was a considerable pain point in

our last go-round, so it's worth emphasizing

how good it's become. On a smartphone, Word

now gives you a small toolbar at the bottom of

the screen for easy access to commonly used

functions like basic text formatting, list

creation, and indentation. Tapping an arrow on

that bar expands it into a larger panel with the

full range of standard Word options, neatly

arranged into sensible sections. On a tablet, the

entire toolbar moves to the top of the screen,

and the various sections appear as permanent

tabs a user-friendly touch that makes a lot of

sense, given the extra screen space.

In terms of features, Word has

practically everything you could want in a

mobile word processor a robust set of tools for

formatting and styling text, tables, and images

along with all the other elements you'd expect

from Word on any platform. Many elements

that were inexplicably missing in our mid-2015

analysis, like a native autosave function, are

now present. The only asterisk is the potential

for collaboration which was missing altogether

in 2015 and is now present in theory but not

entirely functional in reality. I've tried

numerous times to collaborate on a document

in real time with two different accounts, one

signed in on Android and another on a desktop,

and the system does not work consistently.

More often than not, the Android side fails to

update changes; as a result, neither party ends

up seeing the other's work.

On the plus side, Word handles local

files as easily as it does those stored in its own

OneDrive cloud service or even third-party

services like Dropbox or Google Drive. It's

completely seamless to shift between the

Android Word app and the Word app on any

other platform, file fidelity is never anything

you'll have to worry about in this product

family.

G.GURUBALAJI

III B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

15

HOME NETWORK PROTECTION

With the number of internet-enabled

devices in the home proliferating, but no IT

administrators in sight, you may be at a loss as

to how to protect your network and endpoints.

The rise of malware targeting unsecured IoT

endpoints, like the Mirai strain used as part of

October‟s DDoS attack on Dyn, mean it‟s more

important than ever to make security a priority.

Remote workers who use their home office as

their primary office are arguably at even more

of a risk since they may be exposing corporate

assets as well as personal assets. Untangle

recommends the following best practices to

secure your home network.

Secure the perimeter

Businesses rely on advanced threat

protection from systems like next-generation

firewalls that examine network traffic at the

application layer or unified threat management

systems. The Swiss Army knives of security to

protect their LAN-side devices. Many off-the-

shelf Wi-Fi routers aimed at consumers contain

very little in the way of network management,

let alone modern security. Consider installing a

commercial-grade firewall or UTM solution,

some network security software companies

now offer home licenses.

Get visibility

Even if your home network is

safeguarded behind a secure gateway, you still

need to understand and establish a baseline for

what is “normal” network traffic. Consumer

routers offer little in the way of traffic analysis

and reporting. You‟ll need a gateway with

application-level traffic reporting to see which

IoT and other devices are phoning home.

Once you‟ve identified which devices

are connected, you‟ll be able to assess whether

they really need to be internet-enabled. The

safest option is to disable network access

unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary,

consider putting your IoT devices on a separate

local network to quarantine them in the event

of a breach

Turn off dangerous features

Today‟s homes are filled with

electronics that are suddenly “smart” like

televisions with cameras or have voice-enabled

controls. If a hacker was able to penetrate your

network, these devices are easy targets and can

be used to breach your privacy. Turn off any

features that aren‟t truly necessary.

Don’t ignore passwords

It might seem like a no-brainer to

change the default password on a device,

especially since password-based exploits have

been grabbing headlines for years. But stay

16

vigilant when it comes to password

management; choose complex, unique

passwords for each device. Consider a

password manager to keep track and remind

you to change them often.

Use multi-layered protection

Businesses don‟t rely on one method to

protect their networks and devices; they take a

multi-layered approach. Take a cue from them:

make sure you secure your endpoints (phones,

tablets, laptops, PCs and IoT devices) as well

as securing your network. Even if you have a

secure gateway in place, a laptop could be

compromised by inserting a USB stick with a

malware-laden file.

A.RANJITHAPRIYA

III B.Sc. (Information Technology)

CHROME, FIREFOX START WARNING

USERS FOR INSECURE HTTP LOGINS

The war on insecure webpages has

begun, and Mozilla fired the first shot.

Recently, Mozilla rolled out Firefox 51 to its

mainstream user base. With the new release

comes an insecure warning on any page that

offers a login form over an HTTP connection

instead of HTTPS.

HTTP uses an open, unencrypted

connection between you and the website you‟re

visiting that could be intercepted by anyone

monitoring traffic between you and the site.

For that reason, it‟s never a good idea to share

login or credit card information over an HTTP

connection. Most major sites offer the

encrypted version HTTPS but every now and

then you‟ll come across a site that doesn‟t.

The warnings

In Firefox, users who‟ve recently

updated their browser will see a lock icon with

a red strike through it next to an information

icon in their URL address bar. These icons

appear together when a user lands on a login

page with an insecure HTTP connection. If you

click on the icons you‟ll see a plain-language

explanation that the site is not secure, and a

warning that any logins on the page could be

compromised.

Chrome, meanwhile, will take a slightly

different approach. Instead of a red strike

through, Google‟s browser will display an

information icon along with the message “Not

secure.”

17

Chrome’s new insecure warning

Chrome will only display the warning

while the login fields are visible. If you land on

a site that requires you to click on a drop-down

menu to show the login fields, for example, the

“Not secure” message won‟t show up until you

reveal the login text entry boxes. Mozilla

announced in January 2016 it was working on

an HTTP security warning, which first

appeared in the developer edition of Firefox 46.

Google announced its plans to display a

warning for insecure logins and credit card

fields last September. The company also said

this would only be the first step in a “long-term

plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure.”

The impact on you at home

Most major sites and services already

use HTTPS for login connections, but every

now and then you‟ll come across a site that

uses the insecure HTTP. When you do see an

insecure login site, try typing https:// before the

website name and hit Enter to see if that

changes anything. Some sites do offer HTTPS

connections but not by default—using the

HTTPS Everywhere browser extension would

automatically check this for you. If there isn‟t

an HTTP option on the site you‟re visiting,

you‟ll have to weigh the risks of logging in

over an insecure connection versus not using

the site at all.

B.AKILESH,

III B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

BACKUP YOUR PC FOR FREE(BACKUP

EVERYTHING ON YOUR DRIVE)

Windows‟ built-in imaging tool creates

a backup of everything on your drive, including

Windows itself and your settings, programs,

and data. Image backup is the best way to

protect your Windows installation. Windows‟

built-in tool is nowhere near as comprehensive

as some premium solutions, but for maintaining

a personal computer, it‟s acceptable.

Your image backup could prove

unusable if you don‟t prepare a recovery drive

as well. This is a flash drive that can boot into

Windows‟ recovery tool even if Windows itself

can‟t boot. Plug a flash drive (at least 8GB)

into your PC and make sure it‟s working.

Type recovery in Windows 7‟s Start menu,

Windows 8‟s Start screen, or Windows 10‟s

search field, then click the Recovery link in the

results. In the window that opens, click the link

to create a recovery drive and follow the

instructions. Be warned: Any data on the drive

will be destroyed when creating the recovery

drive. Once the recovery drive is created, try

18

booting to it. If it works properly, remove the

flash drive and reboot. It‟s time to create your

image backup. Windows provides an easy

wizard for setting up an image backup, but

getting to that wizard is surprisingly difficult.

And it varies with different Windows versions:

Windows 7: Open Control Panel and select

System and maintenance > Backup and Restore

> Create a system image.

Windows 8: Type file history into Windows

8‟s Start screen. Click on the File History link

that appears and click on the System Image

Backup link at the lower-left of the window.

Windows 10: Right-click the Start button and

select Control Panel. In the Control Panel

Search field in upper-right corner, type file

history. Click the title File History. Click

System Image Backup in the lower-left corner,

then Create a system image in the left pane.

When you click System Image Backup,

a „Create a system image‟ window will open.

On the first screen, you‟ll be asked to select the

destination for your backup image. The picture

to the right shows how you can select an

external or secondary internal drive. You could

also store the backup image on a network

location or burn it to DVDs, but that last option

will take a lot of discs and even more time.

Next, you‟ll be asked to confirm your

backup settings. Double-check that you‟re

backing up your primary drive, which contains

your operating system, applications, personal

files, and the like. If the correct drive is listed,

click the Start Backup button, and the

Windows imaging tool will create the system

image. Depending on the amount of data

involved and the speed of the drives, this

system-image creation process could take

anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

Make a new image regularly say, every

month or two, or before you do something

drastic to your PC. The actual restoration

process is also quite easy. All you need to do is

boot to the recovery disk created earlier, and on

the first screen presented to you, select your

preferred keyboard layout. Then select

Troubleshoot > Advanced Option > System

Image Recovery. The tool will then

automatically scan your system for images and

prompt you to restore the most recent image. If

you stored your image on an external drive, be

sure it‟s connected when the recovery tool

scans for images.

Backing up files locally

Image backups are great for restoring

an entire system to its original state, but there‟s

no need to create new images constantly when

only a few files may change on a system daily.

That‟s where file backups come in. A

file backup program copies only data files

(documents, spreadsheets, photos, and so on)

that have been created or changed since the last

backup. You should run a file backup daily.

19

A good file backup program keeps

multiple versions of changed file feature called

versioning. But too many old versions will fill

up your backup drive, so a really good backup

program will delete the really old versions to

make room for the new ones. That‟s

called purging.

Almost every file backup around

assumes that the external backup drive is

always plugged in, so it can make backups

without bothering you. That‟s convenient, and

will insure that you won‟t forget to back up.

But if your drive is plugged in 24/7, a lot of the

disasters that can make you feel glad you back

up theft, power surges, ransomware can rob

you of both your original files and the backup.

It‟s therefore safer to plug in the drive just

before backing up, and remove it as soon as the

job is done.

That‟s why I recommend you don‟t

schedule backups. You must remember to back

up manually every day. Windows 10 has a very

good file backup program called File History.

To set it up, plug in your external hard drive.

Then select Start > Settings> Update &

security > Backup. Turn on Automatically back

up my files, and click More options.

Look over the settings and make your

choices. Set the “Back up my files” option to

Every 10 minutes. And no, you don‟t have to

have it plugged in 24/7. Windows 10‟s backup

has an excellent purging option, called Keep

my backups. But the default setting, Forever, is

idiotic. Pick any other option and you‟ll be

fine.

Click backup now to start the first, and

longest, backup. After that, the backup will

automatically start within ten minutes of

plugging in the drive. If you don‟t like

Windows 10‟s File History, or if you use an

earlier version of Windows, there are plenty of

free, third-party backup programs available.

They‟re almost all stripped-down versions of

stronger programs that come with a price tag,

but they have enough power for most people.

Easeus Todo Backup Free makes an

excellent choice. It‟s exceptionally versatile; it

can even do its own image system backups. It

takes a little more time to set up than Windows

10‟s File History, but it can do a lot more.

When you open Todo and click the File

Backup icon, you get a simple dialog box

where you can create a backup profile. You can

select the folders you want to back up (the

obvious ones are checked by default), and tell

the program where to put your backup. Links

on the bottom of the dialog box, Schedule,

Backup options, and Image-reserve strategy

provide more options.

Image-reserve strategy is just a bad way

of saying Purging. And despite the name, it

works for file backups as well as images. You

can purge files after x days or x backups. And

you can keep the entire original backup.

20

Put it in the cloud

Backing up to the cloud offers plenty of

advantages. Backups happen automatically,

without the disadvantages of an external hard

drive that‟s always plugged in. And because

the physical backup is nowhere near you, your

whole city could burn down without destroying

your data. If you use both a local and a cloud-

based backup, you have two backups in very

different locations. That gives you much better

protection. Cloud-based storage-sync-and-share

services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and

OneDrive can work as backup tools in a limited

way. After all, they upload your files to the

cloud, and most of them do versioning and

purging.

The problem is that if you‟re using the

free versions of these tools, you can‟t back up

much. But they can still provide an extra layer

of protection for files that are particularly

important or constantly changing.

If you subscribe to Microsoft Office

365, you have a full terabyte of OneDrive

available to you, so you probably could back

up everything. You‟ll have to put all of your

library folders into your OneDrive folder. But

there‟s another, much bigger problem with

using OneDrive for backup: It only versions

Office file formats. You won‟t be able to get

back last Thursday‟s version of an altered

photo or a KeePass database.

In addition to the sync-and-share

services, you can use a cloud-based backup

service although none of these are free. Both

Mozy and Carbonite are excellent. Mozy costs

less if you‟re backing up more than one PC;

Carbonite‟s prices are better for one PC with a

lot of data.

RANJITH KUMAR

I B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

SEAGATE'S ROADMAP WITH 14TB,

16TB HARD DRIVES

Seagate is getting closer to reaching its

goal of making 20TB hard drives by 2020.

Over the next 18 months, the company plans to

ship 14TB and 16TB hard drives, company

executives said on an earnings call this week.

Seagate's hard drive capacity today tops out at

10TB. A 12TB drive based on helium

technology is being tested, and the feedback is

positive, said Stephen Luczo, the company's

CEO.

The demand for high-capacity drives is

mostly in enterprises and for consumers who

21

can afford the drives. The drives are mostly

used in NAS configurations and storage

arrays.Seagate is also rolling out more 10TB

hard drives that are priced starting at around

US $400.

Hard drives have lost market share to

faster and more power-efficient solid-state

drives, which are being installed in more PCs.

But hard drives are surviving in PCs and

servers because SSDs are more expensive.

Hard drives are popular among computer

owners who want more storage capacity than

most SSDs can provide. In data centers, large-

capacity drives are replacing tape storage to

preserve data.

Demand for hard drives remains strong

in the consumer market but has also picked up

in the new areas like surveillance, Luczo said.

Surveillance cameras record data and store it

on hard drives. Hard drives are also popular in

network-attached storage. Seagate is also

increasing the storage capacity per drive, and

wants to raise the minimum capacity of hard

drives in PCs to 1TB, executives said. SSDs

have largely taken over the lower-capacity

market. Thin and light PCs often use SSD

storage with up to 256GB, with few, like Dell's

XPS 13, offering capacities of 512GB. Others

offer 1TB SSDs. Seagate made its name in hard

drives but has also taken a lead in SSDs.

P.VIGNESH

I B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

FACEBOOK LAUNCHES FAKE NEWS

REPORTING TOOL

Facebook plans to deploy a tool to deal

with fake news in Germany. The move comes

after reports that some German politicians

wanted to impose fines of thousands of euros

for each fake news story disseminated. The

process of identifying fake news will typically

begin with a report from a Facebook user. The

company is making it easier to report fake

news. Users need only click on the upper right

corner of a post to file a report.

Such reports, and other warning signs

identified by Facebook, will result in the

suspect news report being forwarded to a team

of fact-checkers working outside the company.

The company has been seeking fact-checking

partners since last November. The fact-

checkers it works with now have all signed up

to the code of principles disseminated by the

International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN)

at the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based training

center for journalists. In Germany, it will work

22

initially work with Corrective and hopes to

work with other media organizations too.

If one of Faebook's fact-checking

partners considers a news report to be fake,

then the report will be displayed on the site

with a label identifying it as untrustworthy.

Facebook won't stop people sharing such

reports, but it will display the warning

alongside them, including a link explaining

why the warning is attached to that story.

While some fake news stories are

disseminated to influence debate, others are

circulated to make money. Facebook is

cracking down on spammers pretending to be

reputable news agencies in order to drive

visitors to their sites. There's still work to be

done on the tool being introduced in Germany,

but Facebook intends to put it to work stopping

the spread of fake news in other countries too.

U.DHANALAKSHMI

III B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

STEPS TO ELIMINATE INSIDER

THREATS

Insider threats are a major security problem

For years, the primary security

objective has been to protect the perimeter, the

focus on keeping outsiders from gaining access

and doing harm. But statistics prove that more

risk exists within an organization. Indeed,

many compliance regulations require

monitoring of systems to identify and eliminate

insider threat. According to Forrester, 58

percent of breaches are caused from internal

incidents or with a business partner‟s

organization. And 55 percent of attacks are

originated by an insider as cited in the 2015

IBM Cyber Security Intelligence Index.

Build a proactive insider threat program

A cross-departmental team, including:

HR, IT, CIS and Leadership. Employee

training on cybersecurity policies and

reinforcement of those policies. Real-time

notifications at the point of violation should be

a key component of the cybersecurity

education program. A user activity monitoring

solution that will keep track of activities of

privileged users, high-risk employees, remote

vendors anyone who has access to your

systems and data. It should track and visualize

users‟ risk and behavior over time for faster

and easier detection of insider threats.

Beware of privilege creep

Have clear video playback of exactly

what happened before, during and after an

event or alert. This decreases MTTR and

provides organizations with irrefutable

evidence that is vital to be able to take action.

Organizations typically have a good grasp of

server statistics, access logs, performance,

uptime, and system events. However, often

gaps exist in identifying who has direct access

to the server. Create credentialed logins (avoid

23

using one general login), and employ an IT

ticketing system to ensure all server-activity is

very important.

Regularly review employee access controls

If there‟s no need for an employee to

access a particular account, revoke their

permission. Additionally, consider restricting

the use of remote login applications or cloud

storage applications on corporate accounts.

Some organizations will perform this review

yearly, but a more frequent review process

(quarterly or monthly) can help mitigate insider

threats.

Monitor all data exfiltration points

With user activity monitoring and video

playback, large print jobs from computers,

USB data exfiltration, Cloud Drive uploads,

sending data to personal email addresses, or

sending files via Instant Messenger do not have

to be investigated by combing through event

logs. With just the simple push of a playback

button, the monitoring of these exfiltration

points is so much easier and investigations can

occur that much more quickly.

Know why users are installing/uninstalling

software

Organizations use virtual desktops, non-

persistent images, various software

management tools, and account restrictions to

control installed applications. In most cases,

these infrastructure-centric methods don‟t

provide information on user intent and

underlying business need. Insider threat

technology can eliminate these visibility gaps

and allow organizations to know whether

people are putting the organization at risk.

Know why users are installing/uninstalling software

Organizations use virtual desktops, non-

persistent images, various software

management tools, and account restrictions to

control installed applications. In most cases,

these infrastructure-centric methods don‟t

provide information on user intent and

underlying business need. Insider threat

technology can eliminate these visibility gaps

and allow organizations to know whether

people are putting the organization at risk.

Speed security investigations

See the smoke before the fire. It is

essential to be able to detect and respond to

incidents and alerts quickly. Without the right

security tools and programs, the mean time to

detect to the mean time to resolve (MTTR) can

be weeks. For example, the FBI often requests

those companies not to intervene with active

exploits so they can gather evidence. Integrate

your user activity monitoring solution with

other cyber security tools so you can provide

irrefutable evidence and decrease MTTR.

J.JAYACHANDRAN

III B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

24

5G MODEM

Intel has a disastrous history with

smartphones. It fumbled a chance for its wares

to be in Apple's first iPhone and then quit

making its Atom smartphone chip to focus on

modems. But the company is now set to ship a

groundbreaking modem that will deliver data-

transfer rates many times faster than most

wired internet connections.

The chipmaker will start shipping its

first 5G modem for testing in the second half

this year. Beyond mobile devices, the modem

could also be used in autonomous cars, servers,

base stations, networking equipment, drones,

robots, and other internet-of-things devices. In

name, 5G is the successor to 4G in today's

mobile devices, but it's significantly faster and

more versatile. It will combine multiple

wireless high-speed and low-bandwidth

technologies and enable communications

across an array of spectrum bands. New 5G

networks are expected to be deployed starting

in 2020.

The Intel 5G Modem, as it's called, is

designed to provide download speeds in excess

of 5Gbps, which is five times faster than

today's fastest 4G modem. It's also five times

faster than Google Fiber, which offers speeds

of up to 1Gbps. But don't expect the modem to

be installed in smartphones immediately. It will

be used mainly for testing on 5G network

deployments. It will also be used to test

possible 5G applications, still being explored in

areas like automotive tech.

The benefits of 5G are enormous.

Download and upload speeds will go up for

devices like drones, robots, smart devices, and

industrial equipment. Faster networks will help

autonomous cars communicate over long

distances about weather and road

conditions. The technology will improve

mobile health-care services, which need

reliable connections for patient monitoring. It

will also help IoT devices remain in constant

contact with servers running analytics.

Intel believes as wireless becomes

ubiquitous, there will be more opportunities to

put its 5G modems in devices. The 5G Modem

is a big move for Intel when its mobile chip

future was in question after many false starts.

Intel's effort to put Atom chips into

smartphones was a colossal failure, and the

company wasted billions of dollars on the lost

cause. Last year, it bailed out of the

smartphone chip market and refocused on

modems.

25

Apple will reportedly use Intel's 4G

modems in its next iPhone, and that's a major

win for the company. Apple also uses modems

from Qualcomm, which is considered ahead of

Intel in modem technology. Qualcomm

announced its first 5G modem, the Snapdragon

X50, in October. Intel is slowly catching up,

but Qualcomm also has the advantage by

integrating high-speed modems inside its

Snapdragon chips that power smartphones.

Intel does not plan to offer Atom chips for

smartphones anytime soon, though it has hinted

that it could make such chips if opportunities

arise.

Intel until now provided FPGAs (field

programmable gate arrays) that could be

programmed to mimic modems. But the 5G

Modem will be needed to obtain results from

real-world testing. The new 5G technology will

be important for autonomous cars, which may

make driving decisions by consulting remote

servers to recognize objects, signs, and lights,

said Kathy Winter, vice president and general

manager of the automated driving division at

Intel.

Intel also announced autonomous

vehicle development kits ready for 5G at CES.

Intel is also building an autonomous car with

BMW and Mobil eye that could be ready to hit

the streets by 2021. It's possible that Intel will

put its 5G modem in that car. Intel's 5G

Modem supports the sub-6GHz band, where

cellular networks typically operate. It also

supports the 28GHz millimetre-wave band,

which should enable deployment trials in U.S.,

South Korea, and Japan, Intel said. The 28GHz

band allows for faster data transfers and is

expected to be used for 5G networks.

G.GURU BALAJI

III B.Sc. (Computer Technology)

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND

DATA SCIENCE

Data science skills will become more

important for coding as software is 'trained' via

AI. Artificial intelligence is affecting

everything from automobiles to health care to

home automation and even sports. It's also

going to have a measurable impact on software

development, with developers becoming more

like data scientists.

AI and deep learning will mean changes

in how software is written, said Jim McHugh,

vice president and general manager for Nvidia's

DGX-1 supercomputer, which is used in deep

learning and accelerated analytics. The long-

standing paradigm of developers spending

months simply writing features will change, he

26

explained. With the advent of AI, data is

incorporated to create the insight for software.

"We're using data to train the software to make

it more intelligent," said McHugh. Data will

drive the software release because the data is

going to give the software the ability to

interact.

While parameters like interface and

application flow will still be needed, data will

drive the feature set in decisions on how the

software evolves. Releases will be based on the

software being trained to another level updates

will be based on new data sets and experiences.

There has been speculation about smart

machines reducing the demand for coders, but

McHugh emphasized there will be a need for

coders with different skills. Developers will

curate the data and take software through the

process of learning by itself, writing Python

scripts, perhaps, to interact with software.

"Coders are going to change their skill sets,"

with more data science and AI skills, McHugh

said.

Aside from its impacts on software

development, McHugh said at the recent

Global Artificial Intelligence Conference in

Silicon Valley that AI would impact the

internet of things (IoT), providing intelligent

applications to work with IoT devices and

process the collected data. He also emphasized

AI's impact in areas like driving, with cars

taught to drive themselves and becoming aware

of the environment around them. "It has to

perceive all this information," such as what

cars are near it and whether it can weave in and

out of traffic, he noted. In the health care field,

meanwhile, artificial intelligence will be

deployed in advanced diagnostics, McHugh

added.

T.BHARATHI

II B.Sc. (Information Technology)

10 NEW UI FEATURES IN WINDOWS 10

1. Hello, Goodbye: Automatic lock when you

step away from your computer

An addition to the Windows Hello

security feature would automatically send your

Windows 10 desktop to its lock screen when

you step away from it. (You can go to the lock

screen by hitting the Windows logo and “L”

keys at once.) An official name has not been

released, but possibilities include Proximity

Lock, Dynamic Lock and Windows Goodbye.

Microsoft has not revealed how Windows 10

would sense that you have stepped away. The

simplest method would be to use your

computer‟s webcam, but this feature could also

pair your smartphone with your Windows 10

computer or device through Bluetooth. When

you step away, taking your smartphone out of

Bluetooth range, Windows 10 would then go to

its lock screen.

2. Action Center UI tweaks

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In the Action Center, look for minor

design changes to the Quick Access icons (the

buttons you click to access specific controls of

Windows 10). The Creators Update could also

embed levels and sliders onto the Action

Center so that you could adjust things like

screen brightness and sound volume from this

panel. This appears to be a redesign meant to

help make the Action Center easier to use on a

touchscreen.

3. Blue light special

There will be a “lower blue light”

mode. When you activate this, the color

temperature of your computer‟s or tablet‟s

display will gradually lower as evening

approaches. This reduces excessive brightness

to your eyes and theoretically helps to improve

your nighttime sleep.

4. Swipe controls on touchpads

If your notebook comes with a so-called

Precision Touchpad, the Creators Update will

make available settings for assigning gesture

controls to it. This means when you tap two,

three or four fingers on the touchpad, or swipe

your fingers in one of four directions (up,

down, left, right), an action that controls

something in Windows 10 is triggered. For

example, you could assign that swiping up on

the touchpad with four fingers will switch the

screen to the desktop environment, or that

tapping the touchpad with three fingers will

open the Cortana interface.

5. Group Start tiles into folder tiles

You‟ll be able to drag-and-drop tiles on

the Start menu over one another, which will

group them together under a single tile (a “tile

folder”). Drag more app tiles onto this tile

folder to put them inside this folder. When you

click a tile folder, it will expand down on the

Start menu to show the tiles you‟ve put inside

it.

6. MyPeople

Microsoft is looking to implement

social networking interactivity into Windows

10 in a prominent way. Named MyPeople at

this point, the app could run on the taskbar to

the left of the system tray icons. MyPeople

would let you pin your favorite contacts to the

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taskbar (represented as icons of each person‟s

headshot), so that you could click one of them

to quickly message that person. It appears that

the people available could come from your list

of contacts on the People app, accounts you

have with GroupMe and Skype, and people you

collaborate with on Microsoft Office.

7. Pick up where you left off

The Creators Update will allow you to

sync an app you‟re using with the same app on

another Windows 10 computer. This will be

managed for you by Cortana sending you

notifications tracking your synced apps. The

intended use scenario is that you would use an

app to start work on one computer and then

finish things later on another computer. An

example: You quickly throw together some

notes in the Word app on your Windows 10

computer at home. When you‟re at your job,

you could then pick up exactly where you left

off at home, resuming what you were writing,

on the Word app on your office computer.

8. Partial screen grabs

Pressing the keyboard combo of

Windows logo, Shift and “S” keys together will

evoke a tool to let you capture an area of the

screen that you select. The captured image will

be copied to the clipboard, from where you can

insert into another application, such as a paint

program, by pressing the CTRL and “V” keys.

9. Share UI upgrades

Windows 10‟s Share function is a

holdover from Windows 8. It lets you forward

content through Windows apps that support

this feature. For example, when you click the

Share icon on the Edge browser, a panel slides

in from the right, listing the Windows apps,

such as the Mail app, through which you can

forward a website link.

This UI will be overhauled in the

Creators Update: instead, the panel will appear

from within the app you‟re using and list the

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Windows apps you can share content to. A new

feature called “Near Share” will offer the

ability to share to a nearby device via

Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. This revamped Share UI

could work in conjunction with the

aforementioned MyPeople so that you can

forward items directly to a person in your

contacts.

10. Virtual touchpad

This tool will be helpful when you

connect a Windows 10 tablet (such as a Surface

Pro) to an external display, like a TV. If you set

it so that the external display functions as an

extended screen, and you don‟t have a mouse

or touchpad connected to the tablet, you‟ll be

able to summon a virtual touchpad to appear on

the tablet screen.