NEW YORK, June 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Horsesmouth's Savvy Social Security Planning® software and education suite has received top rankings in two separate advisor satisfaction surveys.

The 2021 Kitces Report: The Technology That Independent Financial Advisors Actually Use (And Like) and the T3/Inside Information Survey, 2022, both released studies recently showing advisors rank Horsesmouth's Savvy Social Security Planning program number one in satisfaction.

"We're pleased, as advisor satisfaction is our most important benchmark," said Horsesmouth CEO William T. Nicklin. "Whether you're a solo advisor or with a team, our software and education program gives you clear guidance on the best claiming strategies for your clients, and also teaches you about the underlying rules and concepts that make Social Security such a tricky topic."

The Savvy Social Security Planning program launched in late 2008, the first year the oldest baby boomers began claiming their retirement benefits. Since then, tens of thousands of advisors have used the program to learn how Social Security fits into their clients' retirement income plans, to test their newly developed skills through annual CE exams, and to educate clients and prospects with Finra-reviewed presentations and educational material.

"When we launched the Savvy Social Security Planning client education program, the financial services industry paid little attention to Social Security," Nicklin said. "No one seemed to believe that financial advisors should, would or could learn to understand the complexities of the system and help clients plan to make smarter decisions about claiming and maximizing their benefits."

Kitces Report: "Especially high marks"

In 2021, Kitces Research completed an invitation-only survey to advisors to learn which software and technology solutions they use and like.
"Most tools in the Social Security planning category scored remarkably similarly in terms of satisfaction, with the exception that B/D-provided tools rated very poorly, and Horsesmouth Savvy Social Security received especially high marks," the report said. "Notably, though, Horsesmouth is not just providing a tool like most competitors in this space, and rather also provides a package that includes access to professionals for Q&A, presentation templates, and more. Accordingly, Horsesmouth scored particularly well when it came to its value relative to cost as well."

T3/Inside Information: "Software All Star"

The annual software and technology survey from T3/Inside Information described Savvy Social Security Planning as a "Software All Star," having one of the highest satisfaction ratings across all software categories.

The report said all-stars are "solutions that stand out—specifically, that finished in the top five of their category in market penetration, and also achieved an extraordinary (8.0+) average user rating." Additionally, the Savvy Social Security Planning program was the highest rated "All Star" in its category.

Elaine Floyd, CFP®, Director of Retirement and Life Planning, noted that Horsesmouth's initial research in 2008 indicated that most advisors did not understand the Social Security rules. Many advisors urged their clients to claim as early possible. But because those advisors had not been trained on the complexities and nuances of the Social Security rules, they didn't realize their recommendations were unknowingly penalizing their clients.

"When people claim Social Security without getting a custom analysis of their needs, they're potentially leaving huge amounts of money on the table," Floyd said. "They're also possibly reducing the size of their annual cost of living raises and saddling their spouses with lower survivor benefits. And that's not even the whole planning picture."

A measurable impact

One of Horsesmouth's chief motives for developing the program 14 years ago was to help advisors steer their clients away from making hasty and ill-considered decisions when analyzing their Social Security options.

Historically, retirees have unwittingly claimed their benefits too early and suffered harsh, rules-based penalties for doing so. The good news is that according to the Social Security Administration, "between 2008 and 2018, the average claiming age increased from 63.6 to 64.7 for men and from 63.6 to 64.6 for women."

"We believe this can be attributed in part to the efforts of financial professionals educating pre-retirees across the country on how to maximize the benefits of Social Security as part of their retirement plan," Nicklin said.

Since its launch back in 2008, the Horsesmouth program has helped train and support tens of thousands of financial professionals and reached millions of pre-retirees and retirees. In that time, the Horsesmouth Social Security team, led by Floyd, has answered more than 18,000 questions about Social Security claiming cases posed by advisors, typically within 48 hours. "Outside of the Social Security Administration itself, we're not aware of any organization that has come close to that level of in-depth work assisting advisors with complex client cases," Nicklin said.

The Savvy Social Security Planning difference

The Savvy Social Security Planning software is integrated into a comprehensive financial education program for helping financial professionals educate themselves as well as their clients and communities. The software is valuable to financial professionals because it helps facilitate the process of engaging and working with clients and prospects. It is designed as a component of an overall system to enhance the advisor's ongoing education, marketing, client analysis and support, and more.

Over the years, Horsesmouth has continued to increase the depth of the software's capabilities to simplify the complexity of planning around couples, divorces, survivor benefits, WEP/GPO cases and much more.

In addition to providing optimized and popular claiming scenarios, it allows the financial professional, in collaboration with the client, to build and evaluate their own custom claiming scenarios. The software provides guidance along the way that teaches the rules of the system and prevents invalid claiming scenarios.

World class support, financial education

Technology alone does not solve the problems that financial professionals face in helping clients navigate the arduous process of planning for retirement. An essential part of the Savvy Social Security Planning program is providing world class support to advisors in the form of continual updates to educational materials and guidance, along with custom decision support for complex cases.

In addition to helping their clients, many of members of the Savvy Social Security Program are known in their communities as the go-to resource for guidance on Social Security. These advisors use the program's suite of Finra-reviewed presentations and marketing campaigns to deliver this vital financial education about Social Security and retirement planning in local libraries, colleges, restaurants, and offices.

"Educating the public about personal finance issues is the key way for advisors to distinguish themselves in their communities," Nicklin said. "That's why our Master Member program, which includes Savvy Social Security Planning and seven other Savvy topics, is our fastest growing program. Teams and solo advisors realize having finger-tip access to leading subject matter experts and reviewed educational material gives them the competitive advantage they need to guide their clients and stand out from their competitors."

Source

source: Google

The company plans to keep the Google Meet name and the Google Duo application. The application will receive Google Meet features, and the classic Google Meet application will be retired in the process. Google explains that it made the decision to help "people stay connected, and to adapt to evolving user needs".

Back in 2016, I wrote about a built-retire cycle at Google. Back then, the prime example was Google+, but I mentioned the messaging applications Hangouts, Duo and Allo as well. Google shut down Allow in 2018, after two years in which it has been available. Google planned to move users to Messages, and announced that it would bring features of Allo to Messages.

In 2019, Google announced plans to retire Hangouts, a popular messaging service, in favor of Chat and Meet.

Google is coming full circle with the June 2022 announcement. It all started with the splitting of Hangouts into the business product Meet, and the two consumer products Allo and Duo. Allo was shut down first, and now Google is merging the two remaining products into a single product again.

In the near future, Google customers will use one service, Google Meet, with the technology of Google Duo and features of Google Meet, as the core video and voice calling application. Google Duo functionality is not removed from the application, meaning that Google customers may continue to use the app to "make video calls to friends and fmaily by phone number or email address, use fun filters and effects, send messages, and ask Google Assistant to call using existing devices".

Google plans to add "all the Google Meet features to the Duo app" in the coming weeks, "so users can easily schedule a video meeting at a time that works for everyone, or continue using video calling to instantly connect with a person or group".

The new solution gets other Meet features, including custom virtual backgrounds in calls and meetings, in-meeting chats, live sharing of content, real-time closed captions support, and a participants increase from 32 to 100 participants.

Once all Meet features have been added to Duo, Google Meet customers will get an offer to update to the new version. Additional information is available on this support page.

Now You: do you use Google Meet or Duo? What is your take on this development?

Google is turning Meet and Duo into a one voice and video calling application

Note that this driver is not recommended for those using Nvidia graphics cards primarily for gaming. Nvidia is yet to release Game-Ready drivers with optimizations for Windows 11 22H2, which should not take too long.

You can download the latest Nvidia Enterprise Production Branch Driver from the official website.

What is new in Nvidia Enterprise Production Branch Driver 516.25?

New Features:

• Added support for the Windows 11 22H2 operating system.
• Bug fixes and driver component enhancements for performance improvements.

Studio Applications/Feature Support:

• DaVinci Resolve 18 — support for Automatic Depth Map, using AI to instantly generate 3D depth map of a scene to quickly grade the foreground and backgrounds separately, Object Mask Tracking, leveraging AI to recognize and track the movement of thousands of unique objects, and Surface Tracking, using CUDA cores to calculate and track any surface and apply graphics that warp or change perspective.

   

• Topaz Labs' Gigapixel AI 6.1 — performance improvements powered by Tensor Cores for face recovery when upscaling photos.

   

• Marmoset Toolbag 4.04 — support for new features, such as ray-traced Depth of Field, and improved rendering speeds with migration DirectX 12.

   

• Reallusion iClone 8 and Character Creator 4 — support for NVIDIA volumetric lighting and GPU-accelerated skinning for smooth animations with ActorCore characters.

   

• Nvidia Omniverse:

   

  • Omniverse Cloud Simple Share lets users click once to package and send an Omniverse scene to friends

     

  • Audio2Face updates allow quick and easy generation of expressive facial animation from just an audio source

     

  • Omniverse XR App — support for beta release, enabling instant rendering of high-poly models without special imports

     

  • Omniverse Machinima — new sequencer, coupled with animation and rendering features, enable easy creation of animated shorts.

     

Bugfixes and improvements:

• [Adobe Premiere Pro]: NVIDIA Image Sharpening stranded in stale state.
• [Dassault]: Invalid format error when DXGI_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM_SRGB is used with DX/OGL interop.
• [Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE] VK/OGL interop crash with dedicated memory allocation.
• [Maxon Cinema4D][Redshift][Adobe Photoshop]: Redshift crashes Cinema4D on material thumbnail generation when system resources are used by Photoshop.

More information about this driver is available in the official release notes.

Nvidia releases first RTX and Quadro driver with Windows 11 22H2 support

Frontpaged:   Nvidia GeForce Game Ready Driver 512.95

The option, which debuted last December in the Insider Preview Program, automatically changes your desktop background from time to time. The wallpaper changer is not enabled by default in Windows 11. If you want to use it, you will need to dive in to the Settings app's > Personalization > Background page. Click the dropdown menu next to Personalize your Background, and select Windows Spotlight.

The operating system will replace your current backdrop with a pretty landscape image. It also places an icon in the top right corner of your screen. This icon is labeled, Learn about this picture. Clicking on it opens a webpage with the name and location of the image in Microsoft Edge, even if it is not your default browser, oh what a surprise that is. But that's not the problem here, the issue is you can't delete the icon from the desktop.

It can be moved around, but you can't get rid of it. Pressing the delete key does nothing, and you can't drag and drop it on the Recycle Bin. The shortcut doesn't show up in the Desktop folder, either. If you disable Spotlight, the icon goes away, but so does the wallpaper. So, that's not really a solution.

Right-clicking on the icon displays options to open the image in Edge, switch to the next picture, or vote whether you like or dislike the current image. Many users have voiced their displeasure regarding the lack of an option to remove the icon. I agree with them, as it ruins the arrangement and the aesthetics of the desktop.

While Microsoft hasn't provided a way to delete the icon, a third-party tool can be used for this purpose.

How to remove the Windows Spotlight icon from your desktop in Windows 11

1. Download ExplorerPatcher from its GitHub page. You will need to be connected to the internet, for the open source program to download some tools.

2. Run the program.

Note: Don't panic if your Explorer windows are closed, and if the Taskbar disappears briefly. ExplorerPatcher restores the Windows 10 Taskbar style, and aligns the icons to the left of the Taskbar, and restarts Explorer.exe to apply the changes. You can restore the center taskbar style from the app's settings.

3. Switch to the Spotlight tab on the sidebar.

4. Click on the "Hide the Learn about this picture" icon. The X will change to a checkmark.

That should remove the annoying Spotlight icon from your desktop.

Note: If you don't see the option in ExplorerPatcher, you may have downloaded the Stable version of the program. The setting is only available in the pre-release version 22000.708.46.4.

ExplorerPatcher can do a lot more, you can use it to customize various elements in Windows 11, such as restoring the legacy context menu, the Windows 10 Start Menu, and more. The application is not portable, but doesn't need to be running in the background to apply the tweaks.

Do you like the Windows Spotlight wallpapers?

How to remove Windows Spotlight's "Learn about this picture icon" from your desktop in Windows 11

Spotify announced the ARM64-version of its client on the official forums. The post includes a link for downloading the executable file (version 1.1.86.857), plus a notification about a single known issue.

According to Spotify, the app currently struggles with some video podcasts, and instead of playing an episode, Spotify asks the user to update the client. The company recommend watching the broken podcasts in a browser to bypass this problem.

Windows on ARM customers can run the regular Spotify app using emulation, but the native app offers much better efficiency and performance. Unfortunately, the latter is currently in beta, so expect some rough edges and bugs.

If you plan to use Spotify Beta on an ARM-based Windows PC, make sure to share your feedback with Spotify to help the company improve the app. Other users can get the regular app from the official website or the Microsoft Store. There is also a somewhat exotic option to run the Android version of Spotify on Windows. Microsoft recently announced bringing Android apps support to five new countries, so more users can try this unorthodox approach too.

Spotify releases native ARM client for Windows

A core principle of Linux Mint is that things just work. To ensure things keep working after updates and upgrades, the Mint team started pushing, quite aggressively, for people to begin making system backups so they could restore their computers to an earlier state if anything went wrong. The tool of choice for backups in Mint was Timeshift and that utility has been bundled with the distro for quite a while now.

Unfortunately, the developer of Timeshift, Tony George, said he no longer has time to work on Timeshift and after reaching out to him, the Mint team says both parties agreed that the latter will adopt the project and make it into a XApp. This will allow the Mint team to better adapt Timeshift to the Linux Mint environment and integrate it more deeply into the operating system should they decide to go down this route.

We should not have to wait for any new Linux Mint releases to come out before we see the fruits of this news. The team will make whatever changes they want and start pushing them out to users through the update manager whenever they are deemed to be ready.

Linux Mint project takes over development of Timeshift backup tool and makes it a XApp

Zorin OS 16 Education

In certain circumstances, Zorin OS has an education version that is specifically suited for schools and colleges. Offline material is abundant in this system allowing students to access educational materials even if they don’t have access to the internet. A Peer-to-peer distributed system is another feature that is supported. Additionally, it contains multiple open-source apps and the capability to download materials from a number of sources, including Khan Academy, in conjunction with the technology underpinning offline-ready content.

Connections through the presentation or a screen using apps like OpenBoard For example, you may discover applications that allow you to compute or arrange items. To accommodate PCs with out-of-date or low-end hardware, Zorin OS Schools offers a Lite edition (based on XFCE). Either with the complete or light version, you can get started with the educational Linux distribution.

Sugar On a Stick

If your intentions are to utilize a college writing service regarding computer operating system themes, you should find the best place to buy an essay for this. A Linux distribution based on Fedora called “Sugar on a Stick” is designed to teach users the basics of the Linux operating system. S.O.A.S. works off of a USB flash drive and is compatible with all current laptops and desktops, including Apple Macs. To make it easier for youngsters to use and navigate around the operating system, the OS uses a customized desktop termed sugar. If you’re looking for a single operating system that can be used by both students and instructors, this operating system may not be the best option. Even so, because of its user-friendly interface designed with young children in mind, it’s a terrific choice for households with little children. Let’s have a look at a few characteristics this system can offer.

•  It can be installed on any Windows PC or Apple device, whilst being able to operate off a USB stick

• The operating system may be utilized in a classroom or on a home computer since it includes games and instructional applications for children

• To utilize this operating system on a pc where monitoring may not always be available, the user interface is sophisticated toward youngsters’ needs

Edubuntu

Edubuntu is at the top of the list of Linux-based operating systems you should try using for educational purposes. As the name suggests, is an adaptation of the widely used Ubuntu operating system aimed at bringing Ubuntu into educational settings. In terms of educational Linux distributions, Edubuntu is the most popular. The sheer quantity of programs it includes justifies this appreciation. If you’re looking for a lightweight Linux distribution, go no further than the latest Edubuntu 14.04.2 LTS. All of the grade-specific instructional software is accessible via the Software Center. Kindergarten, elementary, intermediate, and postsecondary levels of educational software are all packaged together. Because Edubuntu is based on Ubuntu, it is just as easy to set up as Ubuntu. Mathematicians and scientists will find a wide range of useful uses in this program.

UberMix

Pupils and professors alike may rest easy knowing that the distribution was created by educators with their needs first in mind. Alternatively, you may use VirtualBox to securely test the distribution without having to install anything. UberMix’s purpose is to make the distribution’s installation and administration as easy as possible. This is why UberMix’s engineers have replaced Ubuntu’s installation process with a faster and more simplified version that makes it much easier to deploy new machines.

Debian Edu/Skolelinux has a better app selection, but this Gnome-based distro has a few good educational programs of its own. In complement to instructional applications, UberMix comes with a variety of IDEs so that you may develop in the environment of your choice. All the standard desktop efficiency programs are included in UberMix, so you may use it for everyday chores as well.

Endless OS

What’s interesting about Endless OS is that even the best college paper writing services can’t tell you enough about this system’s efficiency and value. For students, it’s a prominent Linux distribution. It is based on the Debian operating system and utilizes the GNOME desktop. It’s free to download, but you’re limited to using it on 500 machines each year. For PCs without internet connectivity, the user layout is simple to use and visually appealing.

Offline accessibility to Wikipedia Pages makes it simpler for students to access the information and finish their schoolwork. It’s not only Wikipedia; there are many useful applications for students to finish their assigned work.

DouduLinux

DouduLinux is the second most popular Linux distribution on our list. You may download it for free, with no strings attached, without having to spend a thing. It’s unique. For now, there’s no new content, but motivated youngsters may still make use of what’s currently out there. A PC with 256 MB of RAM and an 800MHz CPU is all that is required to operate any version of windows that may be used to install DoudouLinux, such as a PC in our homes.

Conclusion

The idea that Linux is solely for hackers is incorrect. It’s more than that in today’s society. Anyone may simply download and utilize Linux using the software application, including children, families, teenagers, university graduates, and essay writers. There are several reasons for this. Windows dominates the workplace and home environment, while Linux is dominant when it comes to data centers as well as software development, firewalls, cellphones, routers, cloud services; Webhosting; smart homes, and more.

Source

You can download Vivaldi 5.3 on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. Here is what is new.

Editable Toolbars

Vivaldi 5.3 gives its users full control over toolbar layouts. You can select what buttons appear on a specific toolbar and make them fit your unique needs. The browser allows personalizing navigation toolbar, status toolbar, mail toolbar, mail composer toolbar, and mail message toolbar.

To get started, right-click the toolbar and select Edit > Customize toolbar.

Command Chains on the toolbar

Vivaldi has a unique scripting tool for creating custom workflows and algorithms. With version 5.3, you can place your command chains as buttons on the toolbar for quick access.

Reset Button

Vivaldi is famous for its numerous customization options, so it is natural that some users might get slightly lost or over-customize their experience. To fix this inconvenience, Vivaldi 5.3 brings the ability to reset a specific settings section with a single click. For example, reset appearance settings or reset bookmark settings.

Search Engines Sync

The browser now can sync your search engines across all Vivaldi installations on desktop computers, mobile devices, and even cars from Polestar and Renault.

Finally, Vivaldi 5.3 comes with an extensive list of bugfixes and minor improvements. You can find them all in the official release notes.

Source

According to StatCounter, Microsoft Edge currently has a 10.11% global desktop browsers market share. In May 2022, the percentage went up by 0.04 points. Google Chrome was, is, and will be the most popular browser for quite a while. Its current market share is 66.1%, unreachable for any competitor in the foreseeable future.

Apple's Safari is third with 9.16%, which is 0.46 points lower than in April 2022. Mozilla Firefox is fourth with 7.66%, and Opera closes the top 5 desktop browsers with 2.81%. Opera and Edge were the only two browsers that gained new users in May 2022.

Interestingly, about 1.68% of users still use the almost-deceased Internet Explorer. Microsoft wants to change that and move every IE customer to the Edge browser by offering a dedicated IE mode.

Here is a breakdown of the global desktop browser market:

1.  Google Chrome - 66.1% (-0.57)
2.  Microsoft Edge - 10.11% (+0.04)
3.  Apple Safari - 9.16% (-0.46)
4.  Mozilla Firefox - 7.66% (-0.21)
5.  Opera - 2.81% (+0.37)

Google Chrome also crushes any competition on the mobile side, although Apple firmly holds a quarter of the market. Microsoft, which was quite late to the party with a mobile version of Edge, is nowhere to be found in the top 5 list:

1.  Google Chrome - 64.83% (+1.26)
2.  Apple Safari - 24.77% (-0.05)
3.  Samsung Internet - 4.84% (-0.06)
4.  Opera - 1.72% (-0.16)
5.  UC Browser - 1.25% (-0.16)

Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and other developers try to attract new customers and maintain existing ones by pushing regular updates with new features. Google recently released Chrome 102 with PWA improvements; Mozilla pleased its customers by restoring the old downloads prompt in Firefox 101, and Microsoft shipped several bug fixes in Edge 102.

Source

Linux Lite has been around since 2012 and version 6, codenamed "Fluorite", is one of the first Ubuntu-based distros to offer a version built on Ubuntu 22.04 "Jammy Jellyfish", released just last month.

This is unapologetically a distro aimed at Windows users. For instance, unlike some distros, there are no difficult questions of what desktop you want – you get Xfce 4.16, with a trendy flat theme, but a somewhat retro default layout that reminds us of Windows XP. The Start button and window buttons have text labels, for instance. We liked that: it's simple, efficient, and welcome, but Zorin OS 16 manages a more modern Windows look.

Linux Lite also isn't bashful about including non-open-source freeware: the default web browser is Google Chrome. The very long and rather rambling release announcement says this is because Ubuntu distributes Firefox as a Snap package and that the developers wanted to shield users from too many package managers. That's fair enough.

There's also a warning that if you install Firefox from the Software Store, you will also install Snap support. Also legit. What we thought was somewhat strange is that the release announcement then contains instructions for how to install a Firefox .DEB package from an external repository. This seems out of place in a release announcement, not to mention that we would think that it's something the distro vendor should do, rather than leave up to novice users.

Chrome is the most widely used browser so that will probably be a popular choice, albeit not one that will please FOSS evangelists. On the other hand, if being welcoming to Windows migrants is a primary goal, why not bundle Microsoft Edge for Linux? We tried it, and it worked perfectly.

There are a lot of small customizations in Linux Lite that differentiate it from the upstream Xubuntu distro, or obvious competitors such as Linux Mint's Xfce edition, or Zorin OS Lite. Some are evident, such as the Welcome screen, which reminded us of that in several Mandriva descendants. It's odd that even in the installed distro, this has a prominent "install now" button, though. Some tweaks are less obvious but still welcome, such as the powerline Bash shell prompt.

The very first desktop icon is a line to the "Help manual". That's a nice touch, even if we find the name to be a little redundant. To get a feel for the style of the documentation, you can read it online.

The Lite Software app has a list of 37 add-on packages, which is a mixture of FOSS software, such as Ubuntu's upstream "restricted extras" package – which we feel should probably be installed by default – to proprietary apps such as Skype, Spotify, Steam, Teams, and Teamviewer. There's no visible differentiation between free or proprietary tools, but then again, a new Windows migrant probably won't care.

The pre-installed productivity suite is LibreOffice, the stable version 7.2. Given that the distro readily includes so much proprietary freeware, we were surprised this wasn't something more akin to modern MS Office, such as WPS Office, as included in both Deepin and Ubuntu DDE.

Linux Lite 6 is a mixed bag. It includes a proprietary web browser, but one far more popular than Firefox. It includes many other proprietary tools, but not some we might expect. It includes more documentation than most free distros, which is a good thing – but its quality is variable. For example, the release announcement includes a note that a certain action may cause a crash, concluding with: "You tell me." We were also surprised that the "Upgrading" section simply says:

There is no upgrade path from Series to Series.

Even Linux Mint, which for a long time didn't support upgrades, does now, so this is a major omission.

Finally, Linux Lite is not a lightweight distro. The ISO file is over 2GB, and it flatly refused to install on a 12GB virtual drive. It left a 16GB drive well over half full. Using one of the lighter-weight desktops does not automatically make the whole OS light.

These quibbles aside, any PC new enough to have the 64-bit CPU that Linux Lite 6 requires will run it with ease, almost certainly much faster than it will run any supported version of Windows. The look and feel of the desktop isn't as modern as Zorin OS, but we actually prefer that, just as we prefer LibreOffice's traditional menus-and-toolbars user interface to the Microsoft or WPS Office ribbon interface.

If you are looking for something to install as a direct replacement for, say, a tired old Windows 7 installation, it's a reasonable choice… but despite its name, there are lighter-weight options than Linux Lite. ®

Source

In March 2012, a group of like-minded software developers gathered at the University of Oxford, UK, for what they called the Collaborations Workshop. They had a common vocation — building code to support scientific research — but different job titles. And they had no clear career path. The attendees coined a term to describe their line of work: research software engineer (RSE).

A decade later, RSE societies have sprung up in the United Kingdom, mainland Europe, Australia and the United States. In the United Kingdom, at least 31 universities have their own RSE groups, a sign of the growing importance of the profession, says Paul Richmond, an RSE group leader at the University of Sheffield and a past president of the country’s Society of Research Software Engineering. Nature spoke with Richmond about life as an RSE, the role of software in the research enterprise and the state of the field as it reaches its tenth anniversary.

What do RSEs do?

Fundamentally, RSEs build software to support scientific research. They generally don’t have research questions of their own — they develop the computer tools to help other people to do cool things. They might add features to existing software, clear out bugs or build something from scratch. But they don’t just sit in front of a computer and write code. They have to be good communicators who can embed themselves in a team.

What sorts of projects do they work on?

Almost every field of science runs on software, so an RSE could find themselves working on just about anything. In my career, I’ve worked on software for imaging cancer cells and modelling pedestrian traffic. As a postdoc, I worked on computational neuroscience. I don’t know very much about these particular research fields, so I work closely with the oncologists or neuroscientists or whomever to develop the software that’s needed.

Building code is just one part of the role of a research software engineer.Credit: Norman Posselt/Getty

Why do so many universities support their own RSE groups?

Some high-powered researchers at the top of the academic ladder can afford to hire their own RSE. That engineer might be dedicated to maintaining a single piece of software that’s been around for 10 or 20 years. But most research groups need — or can afford —an RSE only on an occasional basis. If their university has an RSE group, they can hire an in-house engineer for one day a week, or for a month at a time, or whatever they need. In that way, the RSE group is like a core facility. The university tries to ensure a steady workflow for the group, but that’s usually not a problem — there’s no shortage of projects to work on.

What else do RSEs do?

A big part of the job is raising awareness about the importance of quality software. An RSE might train a postdoc or graduate student to develop software on their own. Or they might run a seminar on good software practices. In theory, training 50 people could be more impactful than working on a single project. In practice, it’s often hard for RSEs to find the time for teaching, mentorship and advocacy because they’re so busy supporting research.
Do principal investigators (PIs) appreciate the need for RSEs?

It’s mixed. In the past, researchers weren’t always incentivized to use or create good software. But that’s changing. Many journals now require authors to publish code, and that code has to be FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable and reproducible. That last term is very important: good software is a crucial component of research reproducibility. We explain to PIs that they need reliable code so they won’t have to retract their paper six months later.

Who should consider a career as an RSE?

Many RSEs started out as PhD students or postdocs who worked on software to support their own project. They realized that they enjoyed that part of the job more than the actual research. RSEs certainly have the skills to work in industry but they thrive in an environment of cutting-edge science in academia.

Most RSEs have a PhD — I have a PhD in computer graphics — but that’s not necessarily a requirement. Some RSEs end up on the tenure track; I was recently promoted to professor. Many others work as laboratory technicians or service staff. I would encourage any experienced developers with an interest in research to consider RSE as a career. I would also love to see more people from under-represented groups join the field. We need more diversity going forward.

What’s your advice for RSE hopefuls?

Try working on a piece of open-source software. If possible, do some training in a collaborative setting. If you have questions, talk to a working RSE. Consider joining an association. The UK Society of Research Software Engineering is always happy to advise people about getting into the field or how to stand out in a job application. People in the United States can reach out to the US Research Software Engineer Association.

If you’re a PhD student or postdoc, give yourself a challenge: try to convince your supervisors or PI that they really need to embrace good software techniques. If you can change their minds, it’s a good indication that you have the passion and drive to succeed.

What do you envision for the profession over the next 10 years?

I want to see RSEs as equals in the academic environment. Software runs through the entire research process, but professors tend to get most of the recognition and prestige. Pieces of software can have just as much impact as certain research papers, some of them much more so. If RSEs can get the recognition and rewards that they deserve, then the career path will be that much more visible and attractive.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01516-2

Source

Even though Edge 102 comes four weeks after Edge 101, there are surprisingly no feature updates listed in the changelog.

Typically, an Edge update contains sections for feature updates and policy updates. However, this time around, it appears that Edge 102 differs from the previous release through just the latter. The full changelog can be seen below:

New policies

• AllHttpAuthSchemesAllowedForOrigins - List of origins that allow all HTTP authentication
• OutlookHubMenuEnabled - Allow users to access the Outlook menu
• NetworkServiceSandboxEnabled - Enable the network service sandbox
• UserAgentClientHintsGREASEUpdateEnabled - Control the User-Agent Client Hints GREASE Update feature

The update fixes three Edge-specific security issues too, some high level details are listed below:

• CVE-2022-30128 - Chromium-based elevation of privilege
• CVE-2022-30127 - Chromium-based elevation of privilege
• CVE-2022-26905 - Chromium-based spoofing

Microsoft Edge should automatically update to version 102.0.1245.30 for you, but if it doesn't, you can manually trigger the update by clicking the three-dots menu on the top-right corner of the browser window and then navigating to Help and feedback > About Microsoft Edge.

Microsoft Edge 102 arrives with new policies, but no feature updates

Frontpaged:   Microsoft Edge 102.0.1245.30

As spotted by WABetainfo, WhatsApp is working on a new feature that allows users to edit their texts. It sounds very similar to the one Twitter is working on, but they are not the same. Unlike Twitter, WhatsApp may not keep an edit history to allow users to check the previous versions of the edited messages.

We also do not know whether WhatsApp will inform the recipient that the sender has made an edit to the message. Skype lets you edit your texts and informs the receiver that an amendment has been made. Also, it's not entirely clear whether there will be an editing time limit. In Skype, editing a message is available within the first 60 minutes. Twitter will have an editing time limit, too, according to rumors.

The feature was first spotted on the WhatsApp Android app, but WABetainfo says the Meta-owned company is working towards bringing the same edit option to WhatsApp beta for iOS and Desktop. The editing capability is currently under development, meaning it's not available for beta testers nor the general public. But it's likely that beta testers will get it before anyone else.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp introduced several new features, including reactions, large file transfers, bigger groups, and more. The Meta-owned company will keep adding new features to make it a better platform.

WhatsApp will soon let you edit your texts

Most browsers have a setting to change the theme color to Light, Dark or Auto/System. The problem with these settings is that it only changes the appearance of the browser's interface, but doesn't really affect the web pages that you load. As a result, websites that use a light theme will still be blindingly bright even in Dark mode.

The most common solution to this problem is to use an add-on such as Dark Reader for Firefox and Chrome. The extension works pretty well for the most part. But it would be nice to have a native option in the browser, and that is precisely what Opera browser has opted to bring in the latest release that has been rolled out to the developer channel.

According to the official announcement, the new option is available when selecting Easy Setup. Interestingly, it is not visible under the settings if you're already using the browser. But don't let that deter you, it is not restricted to new installs and Easy Setup. Here's how you can toggle the option manually.

How to enable Force dark theme in Opera browser

1. Open the Opera flags page to access the experimental settings.

opera://flags

2. Click in the search box in the top right corner of the page, and type the word, Dark.

3. It will highlight a flag that is labeled "Enable Force dark theme on pages from Settings and Easy Setup". By default, this flag's value is set to D, as in it is disabled.

Note: The screenshot shows Default: Enabled, but that's because I tested it a few times before capturing the image.

4. Click the drop-down menu next to it, and set its value to enabled.

5. Restart the browser by clicking the relaunch button at the bottom of the window.

6. Open the Opera Settings page, and scroll down to the Appearance section.

7. The browser will have a new option here. Toggle the switch that says "Force dark theme on pages".

That's it. Try visiting a web page that has a light theme. It should now display the website the dark theme without any add-ons.

Here's a demo showing you the new feature in action right here on Ghacks.

That's pretty cool, isn't it?

Download the Opera 89.0.4436.0 Developer version from the official website, the new version is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. The build is based on Chromium version, 103.0.5060.13.

Opera announced the availability of its VPN Pro service for desktops, about a week ago. I have not used the VPN, so I can't really comment on its quality or privacy policy But if you're willing to try it,  you will find the option to access below the VPN Section under the Advanced Settings.

Do you like the force dark mode option in Opera? Or do you prefer using the light theme?

Opera Dev channel release gets an option to force dark theme on websites; here's how to enable it

New data shows only two browsers with more than 1 billion users

The first discontinued Excel product in line is Money. This is essentially a dynamic template that enables users to securely connect to their bank's data and sync information directly. It will no longer update your transactions after June 30, 2023. You won't be able to reconnect your existing financial account or connect to a new one either. However, you will be able to retain your current data and Microsoft won't be able to access it. The Redmond tech giant has recommended people to use other premium budget templates available in Excel or migrate to Tiller. The latter offers more functionalities than Money in Excel but has an additional fee of $79/year too (60-day free trial for Microsoft 365 customers).

Next up is the removal of Wolfram Data Types. Microsoft announced a partnership with Wolfram a few years ago but has now decided that it doesn't want to renew it. The Excel maker will now be focusing its efforts on its homebrew solutions. Refreshes for existing Data Types and connections to new ones will stop working from June 11, 2023. That said, your existing data won't be removed, it just won't be connected to the Wolfram service anymore.
Finally, Microsoft is also removing partner offers because the company wants to explore other areas where it can add more value to customers.

Although the company hasn't gone into more details, it has notified that if you sign up for any offer, you necessarily have to redeem it by June 30, 2023, before it goes away forever.

Although Microsoft has disclosed some reasons for discontinuing all three of these products, Thurrott notes that an email sent out to Microsoft 365 subscribers also mentions that "Microsoft is committed to improving your Microsoft 365 subscription. As a result, we occasionally remove underused features and benefits." While the company has provided some alternatives to its discontinued products, it will be interesting to see if this affects customer churn in any significant way.

Source

What is new in Mozilla Firefox 101?

Firefox 101 restores the old downloads prompt Mozilla ditched in January 2022. Starting with Firefox 97, the browser automatically initiated downloads without first asking what to do with the file. Many Firefox users do not like such behavior, so Mozilla decided to revert it while retaining the option to switch to the new Chromium-like downloads UX.

Other changes in Firefox 101 include support for multiple microphones during video conferences and a magnifier for forms on Android version 9 and higher. Also, Firefox now supports the prefers-contrast media query, allowing sites to detect if the user has requested web content with a higher or lower contrast.

If you are interested in the developer side of Firefox 101, check out the changelog for developers in the official documentation.

You can download Firefox 101 from Mozilla's repository or via direct links from our coverage here for different systems. Alternatively, users can wait for developers to push the update later today using the standard update procedure. To check updates for Firefox, open the main menu and click Help > About Firefox.

Last week, Google also released a feature update for its Chrome browser. Chrome 102 is now available for all users with window control overlays and PWA improvements. Edge 102, on the other hand, should become available in the Stable channel this week.

Source

It is also a comment under pretty much every Reg article on Linux that there are too many to choose from and that it's impossible to know which one to try. So we thought we'd simplify things for you by listing how and in which ways the different options suck.

This would be an impossibly long list if we looked at all of them since Distrowatch currently lists 270. So we need to thin the herd a bit.
If you're interested in a comparison like this, you probably don't have a favorite already.

0. Tiny obscure distros. All of them.
Avoid all the niche efforts. Here's why. Firstly, they're small. Not many people use them, so you'll have difficulty finding people to ask for help. Secondly, third-party hardware and software probably won't work out of the box, and if you ask the vendor for help, whether it's a game or a graphics card or a printer, they won't have heard of Ultimate SuperL33tOS version Pi. Game over. Just don't. Stick to the mainstream.

1. ChromeOS Flex

The year of Linux on the desktop came and went, and nobody noticed – maybe because it doesn't say "Linux" on it. ChromeOS only runs on ChromeBooks and ChromeBoxes, but they outsold Macs for a while before the pandemic. "Flex" is the version for ordinary PCs, presumably named because it's what puny $1.5 trillion Google is doing. ChromeOS Flex works great, because it only does one thing: browse the web. You can't install apps, not even Android ones: only official kit does that. You can run Debian containers: if you know what that means, go run Debian. If you don't know what that means, trust us, you don't want to.

2. Ubuntu

"Ubuntu is an ancient African word that means I can't configure Debian.*"

Ubuntu started out as an effort to displace Windows from the number one consumer OS spot by making a Linux that was easier to install and run. It worked. So Microsoft threatened to sue because it looked a bit like Windows if you squinted, and the whole thing fell apart. Ubuntu decided that if it was dodgy to look Windows-like, it would look like Mac OS X instead. Then it went back to GNOME again.

Ubuntu used to be the obvious choice, but it took its eye off the "for human beings" ball (great explanation there, folks) to grab at servers – which, to be fair, is where the money is – and it shows. When it gave up on all its in-house stuff, it kept Snap, its universal app-packaging format that no other distro uses. They work, but they gobble disk space and make bootup slower. If you just want to get on with using it rather than fiddling and fighting, try Ubuntu MATE or Xubuntu, but then our warning about niche distros applies.

3. Linux Mint
Mint is an Ubuntu remix with knobs on. It was an also-ran for years, but when Ubuntu went all Mac-like it saw its chance and grabbed it – along with the number one spot in the charts. It dispenses with some of the questionable bits of recent Ubuntu, such as GNOME and Snaps, but replaces them with dodgy bits of its own, such as a confusing choice of not one, not two, but three Windows-like desktops, and overly cautious approaches to updates and upgrades.

4. Debian
Debian is the daddy of free distros, and the one that invented the idea of a packaging tool that automatically installs dependencies. It's easier than it used to be, but mired in politics. It's sort of like Ubuntu, but more out of date, harder to install, and with fewer drivers. If that sounds just your sort of thing, go for it.

5. Fedora
Red Hat made billions by switching from a free distro to selling an exceptionally boring corporate-server one. This upset the freeloanders. Fedora is the bone Red Hat threw over the fence to them. It's matured into something comparable to Ubuntu, but without the stable releases. You'll be upgrading twice a year, unless you put it off, cross your fingers, and hope that skipping every other version works. Probably not worth the effort unless your day job is trying to stop RHEL boxes falling over, or trying to build code that runs on RHEL boxes without falling over.

6. openSUSE
A whole six months older than Red Hat, SUSE is another vendor of expensive enterprise distros which tosses freebies over the wall. Its innovative solution to Fedora's no-stable-releases issue is to have two different distros. One, "Leap", is synchronized with the paid-for SUSE Linux Enterprise – which is to say it has a painfully slow release cycle. The other, "Tumbleweed", has a rolling release model, which means the exciting potential of breaking changes every single day.

To compensate, it uses Btrfs and snapshots to make it easy to roll back updates – but the package manager doesn't know about snapshots, or Btrfs's famed inability to tell you how much free disk space you have, so it occasionally fills up your file system and corrupts it. Frustrated boredom or cringing terror, it's your choice: have a lot of fun!

SUSE and KDE are both German and it's been the best distro for KDE approximately forever. Demonstrating its deep understanding of the Linux world, Novell bought SUSE, then bought GNOME vendor Ximian, then forced them into an arranged marriage. Now SLE doesn't even offer KDE as an option.

7. A RHEL spin-off
IBM subsidiary Red Hat remains the titan of the Linux world. Specifically, Cronus, who ate his own children. So it bought CentOS, then killed it, as it did with CoreOS.

Or there are Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux, which are RHEL with the serial numbers filed off. Ideal for prototyping stuff you'll later deploy on RHEL, or if you're upskilling for a job in a Red Hat shop, or if you just can't afford the real thing. And there's Oracle if you feel that it looks more trustworthy than the Hat these days.

For your own laptop, these are all perennially a bit behind the times: just what you want if you're a big enterprise, but not if you're running it at home.

8. Pop!_OS
Pop!_OS is arguably one of the most interesting Ubuntu remixes. Saying that, bear in mind the famous line about living in interesting times, and that a motto of the open-source world is to move fast and break things. If you must, put it on a brand-new PC and don't try to dual-boot. Also, remember what we said about niche distros, which applies to all the Ubuntu remixes.

9. Arch Linux
Finally we come to the 10th entry in our list, because Unix people are difficult and like to count from zero. As one of the original rolling-release distros, Arch is the embodiment of moving fast and breaking things. Great if you're a hobbyist or a gamer, not so good if you have a job to do. This also applies to its offspring such as EndeavourOS, Manjaro, and Garuda.

Conclusion
There are loads of worthy entries that did not make our snarky and (honestly!) affectionate list. This was a top 10 for a reason: everything on this list is one of the leading Linuxes out there, and every distro here is a good solid contender in its own way.

The world of free software came into existence because people have very strong feelings about the Right Way To Do Things, and as a result, it both has a strong sense of community and deeply, fundamentally opposed factions, such as the Debianistas versus the Hatters. And that's without going into the desktop or editor wars.

There are lots of others with completely valid reasons for existence, too. The Reg FOSS desk mainly runs a distro that's not in this list at all.
It's all good. Really. ®

* Jokes aside, Ubuntu is an Nguni language (Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu) word that is broader concept philosophically in southern Africa, to do with respect, kindness and generosity in a community. The idea is that it is only through pro-social interactions with other people that you are a human being: "umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" – "I am because you are."

Source

VMware customers have seen companies acquired by Broadcom Software emerge with lower profiles, slower innovation, and higher prices - a combination that makes them nervous about the virtualization giant’s future.

The Register offers that assessment after spending the day at a VMware user group conference in Melbourne, Australia, where we interviewed over a dozen VMware customers to ascertain their reaction to Broadcom’s surprise acquisition of the virtualisation giant. The customers all requested that The Register not use their names, or those of their employers, as none were authorized to speak to the media.

One of those customers was a sysadmin at a sporting organisation that has decided to drop Symantec products because product evolution has slowed under Broadcom’s ownership. The sysadmin has also heard, from multiple sources including Broadcom partners, that the company uses price hikes to discourage customers it does not want.

His initial reaction to VMware being acquired by Broadcom was: “This is not good news.” The sysadmin has seen other acquisitions go badly and fears the same could happen to VMware.

As someone who has made a considerable personal investment in VMware skills, this sysadmin would fight to retain the company’s products. He hopes it doesn’t come to that.

Broadcom’s history with software-defined networking vendor Cumulus concerned the CIO of a healthcare company. Cumulus makes a cut of Linux that focuses on networking and runs on white box switches. Not long after Cumulus was acquired by Nvidia, it stopped supporting Broadcom switching silicon. It's alleged that decision was not voluntary, but became necessary after Broadcom revoked access to its technology as it did not wish to act in any way that could assist Mellanox, another Nvidia acquisition that competes with Broadcom.

The CIO said he fears Broadcom could make similar decisions that impact his VMware implementations. He also griped about VMware’s recent software quality – he was one of the users impacted by VMware’s recall of a recent vSphere update - and expressed fears that acquisition by Broadcom could worsen that situation.

He rated current VMware support “OK” but felt that any cost-cutting that moved support resources offshore would be most unwelcome.

Most of the other customers we spoke to had a “wait and see” attitude to the sale. But all were aware of Broadcom’s past.

“Broadcom acquired CA and where is CA now?” asked an architect from a university.

“Look at Broadcom’s track record,” said an engineer with a transport company, who added some uncomplimentary observations about Symantec and CA Technologies. “They [Broadcom] say it will be different with VMware, but will it?”

A sysadmin from a chemical company offered similar sentiments, adding that all acquisitions are concerning.

An engineer from an environmental management company offered the most optimistic opinion we found, suggesting that VMware has thrived under the ownership of EMC and Dell, so can do so again under Broadcom. This engineer also saw Broadcom's plan to rename its entire software business "VMware" is a positive sign.

But the engineer was the sole optimistic voice among those we encountered at the event. ®

Source

The feature itself is not new, but the recent updates in Edge Canary make it more flexible and customizable. Edge 104 Canary received a new settings section where the user can select what data Edge should snag upon launch.

To enable the new data import feature, open your profile settings and click Import browser data > Import browser data on each launch > Turn on. After that, you can select a Chrome profile and the items to import.

Edge Canary currently supports on-launch import of passwords, autofill settings, payment info, browsing history, cookies, and open tabs. The latter will appear in an "Imported tabs" group. Unfortunately, on-launch import cannot copy favorites and extensions, but Microsoft promises to add these items in future updates.

The new import settings section is available to select insiders in the Canary channel, similar to the new Drop feature responsible for sharing notes and files across your devices.

Source: Leopeva64-2

Microsoft wants to import your Chrome data every time you launch Edge

As first spotted by WABetainfo, WhatsApp’s new status reply indicator is built to help users know which latest messages are a reply to their status on the app. The instant chat messenger will show a new icon when the message is a reply to a status update, helping you recognize them without opening the chat.

The instant chat messenger company seems to be internally testing the feature and may or may not release it to the general public, depending on its assessment of whether it will be useful for users. Nevertheless, WABetainfo has posted a screenshot of the new icon that will appear when the message is a reply to a status. You can see the screenshot below.

The status reply indicator icon was first spotted on the WhatsApp desktop app, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be available for iOS and Android. According to WABetainfo, the Meta-owned company is working on releasing the feature on WhatsApp beta for Android and iOS in the next few days.

Meanwhile, the Meta-owned company recently announced several new features, including 32-person audio calls, the ability to view status updates in the chat list, the ability to use a single WhatsApp account on multiple devices, and more. The company is also working on a new feature that will allow users to leave WhatsApp groups silently. These features are in the development phase and will be available for the general public once ready. You can read about them in more detail here.

Do you think the status reply indicator will be a useful feature for WhatsApp users? You can share your thoughts in the comments.

WhatsApp is working on a status reply indicator

Translate functionality that is built-into the web browser was introduced by Google and its Chrome web browser. You had to install browser extensions before that or rely on manual translations before that.

Most translate services require an Internet connection to work. Google Chrome communicates with the company's Google Translate service to return translated content to the user. While that is handy, some users dislike the privacy implications of translate services.

Some browser makers have integrated privacy-friendly translate services as a response. Vivaldi Technologies, maker of the Vivaldi browser, integrated such a service in Vivaldi 4.3. Instead of using a cloud-based third-party service or untrusted translate feature, Vivaldi Technologies is hosting its own translate service instance.

The holy grail from a privacy perspective is a browser that supports local translations that do not require an Internet connection at all. Mozilla has been working on that for some time now for its Firefox web browser. Mozilla integrated Firefox Translations in the Nightly version of the browser in mid 2021, but it stopped working eventually and little information was released on the status of the project.

Mozilla continued its work on Firefox Translations in the background. A new version has been released some days ago that improves the functionality significantly. If you read the 2021 article on the integration in Firefox, you may remember that Firefox Translations supported only a handful of languages at the time. It could be used to translate English, Spanish and Estonian, and English into German.

Firefox Translations 1.1.2 introduces support for additional languages. Right now, English, Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian, German, Italian, Norwegian Bokmål, Portuguese and Spanish are supported fully. The languages Icelandic, Norwegian Nynorsk, Persian and Russian are listed as beta.

Firefox Translations adds an icon to the browser's address bar; a click on the icon displays a toolbar that resembles the translate toolbar of other browsers. Since Firefox Translations is running all translate jobs locally, it is necessary to download language packs that power the functionality.

When a user selects a language for the first time, its language pack is downloaded to the local system. Once downloaded, Firefox will identify the language automatically. The system language is not displayed as a translate source. If Firefox is in English, you won't get translate options to translate English pages to another language, only the other way around.

Besides improved language support, work on improving the performance of the translate feature has continued. There is room for improvement, as there is a noticeable delay between hitting the translate button and receiving the translated page. It took a second or two in tests, but mileage may vary. Translation quality was excellent, but more tests are required to assess the quality and compare it to translations by popular online services.

Mozilla added several other improvements in the latest version. Firefox Translations supports Apple Silicon Chip devices, the translations of forums, and the highlighting of translate errors. Firefox users may also enable the automatic translation of selected languages.

The latest Firefox Translations add-on is available on GitHub. It can be installed in Nightly and Developer editions of the web browser. Users need to set the preference xpinstall.signatures.required to FALSE and the preference extensions.experiments.enabled to TRUE on about:config to install the add-on in the browser.

Closing Words

Built-in translate functionality that is privacy friendly could give Firefox a much needed boost once it is integrated into the stable version of the browser. There is no fixed date yet. Mozilla still has work to do, including adding more languages and improving the performance of the service further.

Now You: will you use Firefox Translations when it is released? (via Sören Hentzschel)

Firefox Translations: Firefox's offline translate feature is making progress

Jiffy Reader is one of the first browser extensions that brings the reading system to web browsers. It is an open source extension that is already listed on the Chrome Web Store. Users may check out the GitHub repository, as it is hosting the source code and extension files for Chromium, Firefox and Opera.

Note: we could not get the Firefox add-on to install, as Firefox returned a "corrupt" error during the installation process.

The Chrome extension installs fine in all Chromium-based browsers, including Chrome and Edge. The extension needs access to all pages that get opened in the browser. It is disabled by default and displays a configuration window when it is activated in the browser's toolbar.

The interface has a toggle to turn the reading system on or off. Since it is blocked from running automatically by default, hitting the toggle will enable the system on the active webpage. There is a checkbox to enable it by default, but this enables it on all types of sites, including non-article sites or pages.

Once enabled, bionic reading bolds parts of all of the words on the site; this may look like a badly formatted site to most users on first try. The system needs time to get accustomed to it.

The extension includes customization options to modify the reading system for all sites. The three main options let users change the saccades interval, the fixations strength, and the line height.

The saccades interval is set to 0 by default, which means that parts of most words are highlighted.  You may change its value to a positive integer to skip more words. Setting this to 1 will highlight every second or third word only in the text, which may improve readability for some readers.

The fixations strength parameter defines the strength of the highlighting. Setting it to a lower value will reduce the number of highlighted characters in the text, setting it to a higher value may increase it. Line height finally changes the height of lines in the article.

Closing Words

Bionic Reading is an interesting reading system that may not work for everyone. Some may dislike the chaotic display of text, others may find it to reduce the reading speed because of the seemingly random nature of the highlighting.

Chromium-based users may give it a try to see if it improves their reading comprehension and speed.

Now You: do you use speed reading or reading comprehension systems? (via Caschy)

Bionic Reading: promises better, faster and more focused reading

The new feature is called "Drop." It "lives" in a dedicated side panel like Collections, History, Math Solver, etc. The idea behind Drop is to provide users with a cross-platform space for storing various content. You can drag and drop any file or create a note by typing it into a message box. Once synced, items in Drop become available in Edge on your other computers and mobile devices.

Overall, Microsoft Edge Drop tries to mimic the "Saved messages" feature in Telegram, a dedicated space for storing anything you want inside the messenger. Unlike Telegram, which provides unlimited cloud storage, Microsoft Edge Drop seems to be dependent on free space available in your OneDrive. Drop settings show a QR code for downloading Edge on mobile, plus a OneDrive storage indicator.

As of now, Drop is available only in Microsoft Edge Canary 104 for select users. It is a part of a controlled feature rollout, so not everyone can test Drop right now on the latest release. You can try your luck by installing Edge Canary and checking the feature in Settings > Appearance.

Another noteworthy feature Microsoft is testing is a native VPN for Edge called "Secure Network." Like Drop, Secure Network is available for a limited number of Edge Insiders in the Canary channel. You can also note that Edge on our screenshots looks slightly different than the one in the Stable channel. That is an experimental Windows 11-like UI, also available only in the Canary channel.

What do you think about having a native tool for sharing files and notes using Edge? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

Edge Canary gets a built-in feature for sharing files and notes across devices

Microsoft continues to maintain a stranglehold over the office software market, despite the best efforts of Google and the effects of the pandemic, new data shows.

According to a 500-person survey conducted by OnePulse on behalf of TechRadar Pro, Microsoft 365 is the chosen productivity suite of the majority of US businesses (58.20%), whereas Google Workspace is used by only 15%.

The poll also highlighted the extent of headwinds faced by smaller players, with alternatives like Zoho Workplace, Polaris Office and LibreOffice all used by fewer than 3% of respondents.

Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace

It is perhaps news to no one that Microsoft leads the way in the office software market with its famous Microsoft 365 suite, but the extent of that lead may come as some surprise, given the reputation of apps like Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides and more.

One of the defining features of Microsoft’s offering is tight integration between apps and services, extending all the way out to the Windows operating system on which most business computers run.

However, Google stole a march on Microsoft when it came to the real-time collaboration model, whereby software is served up via the cloud, which has proved all-important since the transition to remote and hybrid working.

In 2020, Google also rebranded G Suite to Workspace, signalling an increase in investment in the software suite. As part of this process, the company announced it would make a concerted effort to create a more “deeply integrated user experience”, closing the gap on its rival.

Since then, Google has rolled out hundreds of upgrades in an attempt to deliver on this objective and further fine-tune its services for the post-pandemic working environment.

However, the new data provided to TechRadar Pro suggests these efforts have ultimately translated into limited user growth.

Although the survey is far from comprehensive and doesn’t provide a global picture, the results are backed up by the financials. In Q1 2022, Google’s cloud services (which includes Workspace) accounted for $5 billion in revenue, whereas Microsoft’s productivity segment took in $15 billion.

In other words, Google has a long way to go before it can genuinely challenge for the market lead.

Source