Linux, Open Source, & anti Microsoft news

Google is looking to offer a native Terminal app for Android, possibly with Android 16. The Terminal app will allow installation of a Linux VM with full GUI and GPU acceleration along with other sysadmin features including disk resizing, port forwarding, and partition recovery. This is an extension of Google’s earlier project of allowing Chrome OS to run on Android using the Android Virtualization Framework.

While there is a case for Edge over Chrome with regards to malware protection, it feels somewhat askew for a Microsoft product that competes with Chrome to be recommended in a security advisory for a CVE disclosed by Microsoft, now riding a wave of Chrome generated publicity.

Microsoft is investigating an Outlook bug causing desktop app crashes, high system resource usage, and preventing users from logging into their accounts.

The company has announced that the free version will no longer be able to sync with Google Calendar. Additionally, Microsoft is doing away with location sharing, which displayed your live location to folks in your contact list. The company is also nixing the Safe feature, which allowed you to store sensitive information like banking information and personally identifiable data in Teams and access it across mobile devices. Tasks, which shared to-do items with your contacts and work groups, is getting the ax as well. Mini Teams, the feature that placed a compact chat window directly on the desktop, is being discontinued as well.

​Microsoft says this month’s Patch Tuesday cumulative updates fix a known issue that causes Windows servers to disrupt Remote Desktop connections in enterprise networks after installing the July Windows Server security updates.

Today is Microsoft’s October 2024 Patch Tuesday, which includes security updates for 118 flaws, including five publicly disclosed zero-days, two of which are actively exploited. This Patch Tuesday fixed three critical vulnerabilities, all remote code execution flaws.

Microsoft warned users of a new known issue that may cause Word for Windows to delete some documents instead of saving them. As the company explains, this bug only impacts users of Word for Microsoft 365 version 2409, build 18025.20104. Furthermore, this problem only arises when users close Word after editing and are prompted to save. After saving their changes this way, the file may disappear.

Microsoft wants you to talk to your computer. No, not by swearing at it when your boss schedules another 8 a.m. meeting. Rather, the tech giant wants you to have actual back-and-forth conversations with your laptop.

Microsoft plans to invest 4.3 billion euros ($4.8 billion) over the next two years to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure in northern Italy, it said on Wednesday.

Despite the company’s efforts to push customers towards cloud-based subscriptions – a move mirrored across the industry – continuing to offer perpetual licenses ensures that the company maintains certain users who prefer buying and owning their software.