Tag Archives: General Interest

Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Apple Products Released at Far Out Event

On September 7, 2022, Apple hosted its annual product release event at one pm Eastern Time (ET). Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, took the stage at the Far Out event held at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, to unveil a slew of brand-new and significantly enhanced devices. The iPhone 14 and several new smartwatches and AirPods are among the latest products.

The company released three new smartwatches to add to its expanding collection.

The new Apple watch series 8 was released at the event. Apple’s newest smartwatch has a
redesigned watch face, a large display, and several safety features, including collision detection.

The standard model begins at $399, but enthusiasts may upgrade to the deluxe model for
cellular data connectivity. The Apple Watch SE’s new design is identical to its predecessor’s. The only physical difference is that the base casing is composed of a nylon composite material, making it somewhat lighter. Beginning at $249, the SE is less expensive than previous models.

The Apple Watch Ultra has a case built from a titanium composition, making it more robust than other Apple Watch models. In addition, the display brightness of the smartwatch is 2000 nits, making it the brightest among all Apple watches. Along with sophisticated algorithms for reducing wind noise, the three built-in microphones considerably enhance the overall sound quality of the device. Another notable feature of the Apple Watch Ultra is the dual-frequency GPS, which provides more precise GPS data. The Apple Watch Ultra is priced at $799.

The H2 audio chip, swipe-based volume controls, improved noise cancellation, and extended battery life are just a few of the improvements included in Apple’s AirPods Pro 2.
Despite the new features, Apple decided not to change the price from $249.

The most interesting new product unveiled by Apple is the iPhone 14, which will be available in four distinct models: iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Apple made several hardware and software improvements to the iPhone 14 and iPhone14 Plus, including enhanced thermal performance, a new photogenic engine to boost the camera performance, and satellite communication in the event of an emergency.

The “dynamic island” feature can only be found on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. According to Apple, “the dynamic island enables new ways to interact with iPhone, featuring a design that blends the line between hardware and software, adapting in real-time to show important alerts, notifications, and activities.”

With the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, consumers will have access to updated
features, including improved cameras, adaptive flash, enhanced safety features, and the new A16 chip to improve efficiency.

Customers may place orders for any of Apple’s newly released items; however, the iPhone 14 Plus is not scheduled to ship until October 7, 2022.

The “Far Out” event Apple hosted was undoubtedly exciting for those passionate about the company’s products. It will be intriguing to watch how Apple continues to develop innovative approaches to continue servicing its customers.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Google Leaving IoT Services

Tech giant Google recently announced that it’s closing the doors on its IoT Core service.  Their stated reason for doing so was that their strategic partners can better manage customers’ IoT services and devices. Time will tell if the company’s decision was a good one.

Another tech giant, Microsoft, is wasting no time and is moving heavily in the opposite direction, adding to their suite of IoT services and offering increasingly tight integration with Azure. In recent years, Microsoft has bet big on IoT, and now has an impressive stable of offerings.

Microsoft’s offerings include but are not limited to:

  • The Azure IoT Hub, which serves as a central point of connection for IoT assets, allowing them to be more easily managed and monitored
  • Azure IoT Central, which gives users the capability of building edge solutions via Microsoft Tools
  • Azure Digital Twins, which models physical environments via “spatial intelligence”
  • Azure IoT Edge, which is a platform that brings analytics to edge-computing devices
  • Azure RTOS, which is a real time IoT platform
  • Windows 11 IoT and Windows 10 IoT core
  • And Azure Sphere, which is a Linux-based microcontroller OS platform

Microsoft is not alone in investing heavily in IoT services, however.  Amazon currently has a full suite comparable to what Microsoft is offering integrated with their highly popular and widely used AWS service. So even with Google pulling out of the space, consumers still have two strong and viable options to choose from.

The months ahead will be interesting indeed as the strategies these tech giants are pursuing begin to mature, creating ripple effects across the markets they serve.

For Microsoft’s part, it appears that CEO Satya Nadella’s recent statement that the company was interested in building an intelligent cloud/intelligent edge solution has changed somewhat. It is becoming an intelligent end-to-end distributed computing solution.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Windows 11 Gets New Taskbar Overflow Option

Are you the type of person who is in the habit of keeping all their apps open?  If so, you’re going to love a recent addition to Windows 11.

In a bid to make finding your open apps easier, once you’ve run out of room on the Windows Taskbar, they’ve introduced a new “taskbar overflow” feature.  It’s a three-dot menu that appears when there’s no more space on the taskbar that hides all the other apps you are running that don’t have room to be displayed there.

This is a vast improvement over the Windows 10 overflow, which only shows the most recent app that has been used or has been opened.

If you’re not a power user, you probably won’t even notice the change. If you are, once you give the new feature a try you’ll probably wonder how you ever got along without it.  In our view, it’s right up there with tabbed browsing.  It’s something that doesn’t seem at first glance like it would make much of a difference, but its impact is profound.

There has been quite a lot of that kind of thinking going into the design of Windows 11, and we have to say we’re impressed by the way the new OS is shaping up so far.  If this and other small but important innovations are any indication (and we absolutely believe that they are) then Windows 11 is going to be an absolute game changer when it’s released.

Kudos to Microsoft for really going the extra mile both in terms of updating and modernizing the overall Windows aesthetic and also for putting their collective thinking caps on and coming up with solutions to problems that really detract from the overall user experience.  Keep up the good work, and Windows 11 is going to be amazing.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Cyber Security Best Practices For Businesses

Smaller companies often struggle to develop and invest in robust IT security systems, which can leave them relatively more vulnerable to cyber attacks.

If that’s the situation you’re in and you’re trying to decide what to invest in and where to use the money that you have to spend on IT security, here’s a quick overview of the basics you need to have covered.

1 – Door Access Control

Believe it or not, this properly falls under the cybersecurity umbrella since magnetic door locks and swipe cards (or similar technology) are ultimately managed via a server on your company’s network.

If you don’t have such a system in place, we strongly urge you to consider one. Once it’s in place, regularly review who has what level of access.

In addition to that, most door security systems include some type of monitoring software, and it pays to set up automated alerts when an employee shows as deviating from their usual routine.

Example:  If Linda’s regular work schedule has her swiping her card and entering the office just before 8AM, and leaving a little after 5PM and suddenly you see her coming in at 3:00 in the morning, that’s a sign that something is amiss and is well worth investigating.

2 – Encryption, Encryption, Encryption

Even if a hacker breaches your network, they can’t make use of any files they get their hands on if they can’t decrypt the data.

There are three types of encryption you want to be focused on:  Encryption at rest, encryption in use, and encryption in transit.  If your files are encrypted in all three states, a hacker is going to be hard-pressed to get anything useful from your network, even if they break in.

 3 – Ongoing Security Training

The sad truth is that all the fancy hardware and software in the world can be circumvented by going after the weakest link in your security chain, which is always your people.  If someone uses a weak password for the sake of convenience, that’s a way in for a hacker.

If someone is prone to opening email attachments from unverified sources, that’s another potential inroad. The problem is that too many employees don’t fully appreciate the security risks that these seemingly innocuous activities carry with them.  Make sure they know.  Make sure everyone knows.

There’s a lot more to robust security of course, and cybersecurity is constantly evolving, but if you start here, with these three items, you’ll be miles ahead.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

New Phishing Service Is Targeting Banks

Hackers are increasingly adopting practices that legitimate business owners will immediately recognize.

Recently, a new PhaaS (Phishing as a Service) operation has surfaced that specifically targets major banks. These banks include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Capital One, PNC, US Bank, Lloyds Bank, Santander, and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Snarkily named “Robin Banks,” the service also offers templates to steal T-Mobile, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft accounts.

The group was unearthed by analysts from IronNet, whose evidence indicates that the group has been active since at least March of this year (2022).

Even though the group hasn’t been active for terribly long, they’ve already made quite a name for themselves for their high-quality phishing pages that target customers of the organizations mentioned above.

The group has two different pricing tiers to those who wish to engage their services.  Their budget option is just fifty dollars a month and offers a single page and 24/7 support. Their deluxe package is available for $200 a month and it gives their customers unlimited access to their templates, along with 24/7 support.

The service even offers a professionally designed dashboard. This allows threat actors who hire them to keep an eye on every aspect of their illicit operation, create and manage the pages they have created using the offered templates, wallet management, and a variety of other advanced tools, including reCAPTCHA services to thwart bots.

If you’re in any way associated with information security, the details above should alarm you.  Robin Banks has seen their popularity on the Dark Web explode.  What’s perhaps most disturbing about the service they’re offering is that increasingly, hackers don’t need a broad or deep skillset to set up an effective phishing campaign.  The service does all the hard work for them.

Unfortunately, that means that IT Security just got a whole lot harder.  Stay vigilant out there.

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