One update is friction detection powered by machine learning to visually identify moments in both individual video sessions, and across multiple videos, where people experience friction behaviors like excessive clicking or scrolling while using digital products, including prototypes, apps, and websites, according to the company in a post. 

Now, organizations have the ability to merge behavioral data with video feedback to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the challenge and enhance the likelihood of successful outcomes. This functionality is especially beneficial for product and design teams, as it empowers them to visualize the user’s journey, and subsequently refine processes before committing costly development resources.

The new update includes integration with Microsoft Teams which will allow users of UserTesting and Microsoft Teams to easily share videos and related content with colleagues without leaving the UserTesting platform.

UserTesting also introduced expanded capabilities for Invite Network to help teams gain access to more audiences with increased privacy. The company stated that it will soon offer an integrated login experience for customers when they access the UserTesting, UserZoom, and EnjoyHQ platforms.

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The user experience has been improved so that it is easier to locate everything in one place. The company stated that these enhancements also work to build the foundation for Microsoft’s AI-powered experiences, such as Copilot for Microsoft Teams.

In an effort to bring users heightened speed, Microsoft has made a ground-up investment to overhaul the platform to provide speed and performance improvements for data, network, chat, and video architecture.

Enhancements have also been made to the core experience of Teams that are geared at simplifying the way customers stay on top of notifications, search for information, manage messages, and organize channels. 

Furthermore, Microsoft has improved the Teams authentication model, synchronization, and notification system to offer users a more consistent experience. 

According to the company, it will also use AI to improve collaboration by providing users with the information needed so they can be up to speed on everything that happened prior to joining a meeting or chat. Additionally, the next-gen AI experiences provide users with answers to questions in the flow of discussion.

To learn more about the new Teams, read the blog post. 

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Code Dx has integrated Secure Code Warrior into its automated vulnerability management and correlation platform to offer contextual training specific to an organization’s vulnerabilities. 

“Oftentimes, there are thousands of results in a project and there’s no way for security to triage all of them while keeping up with the speed of DevOps. The Code Dx platform effectively solves that problem,” said Utsav Sanghani, the director of product management at Code Dx. “While fixing problems is critical, preventing coding errors that result in vulnerabilities can only be addressed through consistent, integrated contextual training offered by organizations like Secure Code Warrior.”

Octopai introduces Data Lineage XD

Octopai announced its new multidimensional data lineage platform, Data Lineage XD, to help enterprises achieve an in-depth view of their data flow so that they can get more value from their data assets. 

The platform’s three layers of data management include cross-system lineage, inner-system lineage and end-to-end column lineage.

With the new release, Octopai aims to enhance collaboration for BI teams, democratize data management and also to simplify the onboarding process for new employees. 

New Microsoft Teams features announced

Microsoft announced the general availability of new personal features in Teams to help family and friends communicate in more innovative ways. 

The Together mode feature enables people to turn regular video calls into ones where people share a virtual environment such as a family lounge, coffee shop or a summer resort.

Microsoft also helps people manage tasks directly within their group chats by creating shared to-do lists and assigning tasks to various members of the group. 

Additional details are available here.

Apache weekly update

Last week, the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) saw the release of HttpComponents Client 5.1 GA, which supports encryption with the HTTPS protocol, adds pluggable socket factories and TLS strategies and more. 

Additional releases from the ASF last week included UIMA uimaFIT 3.2.0, Log4cxx 0.12.0, ActiveMQ 5.15.15 and 5.16.2, SkyWalking Kong 0.1.1, Tomcat 8.5.66, 9.0.46 and 10.0.6 as well as MyFaces Core 2.0.25.

Also, Apache Trafodion, the webscale SQL-on-Hadoop solution enabling transactional or operational workloads on Apache Hadoop is now retired due to inactivity. 

Additional details on all of the releases are available here.

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Many of the features now are aimed at combating meeting fatigue and the fact that people are still feeling alone despite today’s collaboration tools, said Mark Rackley, chief  strategy officer at Microsoft technologies consultancy PAIT Group. 

“It’s now the go to-tool in the Microsoft stack for collaborating remotely and doing calls and meetings and Microsoft has been making a ton of enhancements to Teams with ‘call-together mode,’ which puts people in different scenarios as if you’re in a classroom setting or a coffee shop,” Rackley said. 

RELATED CONTENT: WFH reveals an ‘I’ in team

The feature, which came out in June 2020, shifts away from the traditional video-conferencing grid of boxes by bringing people together in a virtual space, creating an environment that users say has a profound impact on the feel of the video conference. 

“People’s brains are used to being aware of others based on their locations, and the mirror effect makes it harder for the brain to notice eye contact irregularities. Those are some of the qualities that make it easier for everyone to tell how they are responding to each other,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post. “Together mode is built to give people the impression that everyone is looking at the entire group in a big virtual mirror.” 

Microsoft also recently released Dataverse, which gives users a way to build custom apps, bots, and flows in Microsoft Teams by using Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents, and Power Automate. 

Also at Ignite this year, Microsoft announced that users can get to their home site from within Teams. The home site app provides organizations the ability to pin company-branded entry points to their intranet as a top-level app in Teams. It provides quick access to company-curated resources, important sites and news similar to those provided by the SharePoint App Bar in the web.

“They’ve just rolled out so many features since the pandemic hit, like you can raise your hand and there are meetings where you can see a person actually imposed on top of their screen rather than just sharing your screen to get that more personal feeling. Basically everything that they’re doing right now seems really pushing you to Teams,” Rackley added.  “It’s just an explosion of the ability to get into Teams and do everything that you can do from teams. So in Teams, ‘you’re always in Teams doing everything within Teams’ kind of one-stop shop type thing.” 

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Users can now run commands such as sync, checkout, status, diff, and commit across an entire project. hth-cli also enables multirepo code reviews when used with Helix4Git, allowing developers to review multiple changes at once and merge them atomically.

“Enterprises who want to use Git experience huge challenges with scale,” said Brad Hart, the CTO of Perforce. “By bringing their Git repositories into Helix TeamHub and using hth-cli, they can finally scale Git to meet their needs.”

GitHub integrates with Microsoft Teams
The integration is now available in public betas d  includes the ability to close/reopen issues and comment on issues/pull requests right in Teams.

Users can choose to get notifications for only the organizations and repositories that they care about. 

The notification card developers see for any pull request or issue will always reflect the current state from GitHub along with other metadata like checks, descriptions, labels, assignees, and reviewers.

Additional details are available here.

Visual Studio Code 1.49 released
The new release includes updates such as format modified text, the ability to change casing on Search and replace, source control repositories view, and more.

The new setting ‘editor.formatOnSaveMode,’ makes Format on Save only apply to modified lines. Meanwhile, the ‘Format Selection’ command is now multi-cursor aware.  

The full list of new features in detail is available here.

Ionic Vue beta now available
The new and improved ionic Vue beta is built with Vue 3 and it now features the same stack management that is found in other versions of Ionic Framework.

In order to handle Ionic Framework’s animations, Ionic extended the Router’s API through the ion-router-outlet component. 

Ionic Vue was updated to support not only Vue 3 but the all new Vue Router. 

Additional details are available here.

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Microsoft Teams recently celebrated its third anniversary and in doing so, released some new, innovative features that are ideal for remote workers to help them become more productive during this COVID-19 outbreak. 

While working remotely is obviously much different than interacting within the same building at a corporate headquarters, where people can engage in face-to-face dialogue, at this time, organizations are doing their best to maintain connectivity by engaging in professional, online meetings. With this third anniversary edition, Microsoft Teams is enhancing and adding new capabilities to build the best online meeting experience to help users succeed from a remote location. 

RELATED CONTENT: Microsoft builds a new online developer experience

Let’s explore some of the new capabilities which have already rolled out, along with some new ones which are scheduled to be available later this year.

Avoid background distraction — While attending a Teams meeting from any location, the “user with background blur” feature can keep the focus on themselves without worrying about background movement. 

Minimize background noise — Many of us, while working from home or a remote location, can sometimes face noise issues in the background and are unable to clearly understand what is being said in online meetings, which can inhibit concentration. Microsoft Teams has arrived at a solution with real-time noise suppression features to minimize distracting background noise and to improve our ability to clearly hear what’s being said.

Easy participation in large meetings — The new “raise hands” feature in Microsoft Teams meetings makes it easier for attendees to actively participate in large meetings. Attendees can send a visual signal when they have something to say, and everyone in the conference will see a visual cue on the attendee’s video feed, as well as in the participant list. This will give an attendee the room to more actively participate in the current conversation.

Offline experience — With offline support, users can now access Microsoft Teams even when no network is available or with terrible network conditions. With offline capability, users can create and read messages, view calendar, browse previously viewed channels, pinned chats, and more.

Quickly reach a group all at once — Microsoft Teams allows creating a tag to categorize people based on attributes such as role, project, skill, or location. Tagging people helps the user notify a group of people all at once by @mentioning a tag in a chat or in any standard channel of the team without having to type every single name. Anyone who has been given that tag will receive a notification as they would if they were personally marked by @.

Automatic creation of an org-wide team — For small to medium-sized businesses, and for organization-wide collaboration purposes, Office 365 global admin can easily create a public group that automatically pulls in every user in the organization, and keeps the membership up-to-date with active directory whenever a user joins or leaves the organization.

New files experience in Microsoft Teams powered by SharePoint — The new file experience in Microsoft Teams provides you with the ability to have a rich preview across 320+ file types, create views, sync files to your computer, work with metadata, pin files to the top, take actions like check-in and check-out, and much more.

Pop-out chat windows for easy chat switching — For smooth movement between ongoing conversations, Microsoft Teams will now allow the user to pop out individual chat conversations into a separate window.

Several other new features are planned in the near future. Let’s take a look at what’s currently scheduled to be coming to Microsoft Teams.  

1. Low-bandwidth support — Microsoft Teams is also now optimized to work in low- or poor-performing network scenarios. With this support, a user will be able to send messages even with sub-optimal connectivity. In the case when network bandwidth is too poor to send a message, the user will be notified, and a message will be saved until the user has returned to a functioning network.  
2. Store recordings in region storage when stream isn’t available in Go Local — Teams meeting recordings get stored in Microsoft Stream cloud storage. In contrast, cloud recordings are currently not allowed/enabled for customers where Stream service is not available in the corresponding Go Local region. Now, Microsoft is going to change the current behavior by allowing “Allow cloud recording” and turning it ON by default. This modification will store the recordings in the respective in-region data center.
3.  Include up to 10,000 users in an individual team — In Microsoft Teams, the upper limit on individual team members has been increased from 5,000 to 10,000 users. This upgrade will likely start rolling out to customers very soon.
4. Group chat with up to 250 people — Sometimes we need to collaborate with a large group; for instance, members from multiple teams without creating a team as a group chat. The group chat feature will allow up to 250 users in a group conversation to quickly do a group chat. This upgrade will start rolling out to customers soon.

Microsoft Teams continues to expand its functionality to meet the needs of users in all roles and across industries, enabling work continuity during challenging times. There’s no debating the fact that “Work from Home” (WFH) is made much easier by using Microsoft Teams.  

Microsoft Teams allow you to quickly connect with teammates and be more productive from home as well. To ensure success, you’ll also want to consistently evaluate available technology options as they become available, and act quickly and efficiently consider them for support to truly empower your distributed teams and remote workforce. 

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According to the company, the biggest feature it worked on for this release is the project references as it aims to make it easier to work through several different build steps.

“Project references allow TypeScript projects to depend on other TypeScript projects – specifically, allowing tsconfig.json files to reference other tsconfig.json files. Specifying these dependencies makes it easier to split your code into smaller projects, since it gives TypeScript (and tools around it) a way to understand build ordering and output structure. That means things like faster builds that work incrementally, and support for transparently navigating, editing, and refactoring across projects. Since 3.0 lays the foundation and exposes the APIs, any build tool should be able to provide this,” the company wrote in a post.

Microsoft Teams now available for free

Microsoft is releasing a free version of its team collaboration solution Microsoft Teams. The free collaboration tool will be available in 40 languages and is designed for smaller businesses and groups of employees who don’t use commercial Office 365 subscriptions.

The free version can include up to 300 people and features unlimited chat messages and search, built-in audio and video for calling, 10 GB of team file storage, and unlimited app integrations.

GitHub adds alerts for Python security vulnerabilities

GitHub is updating its security alerts feature to include Python. As part of the Python support, users can access the dependency graph and receive alerts on repositories and packages with known issues. In addition, the team plans to add more Python vulnerabilities to the database and monitor the NVD feed and sources.

“Last year, we released security alerts that track security vulnerabilities in Ruby and JavaScript packages. Since then, we have identified millions of vulnerabilities and have prompted many patches,” the team wrote in a post.

Bootstrap 4.1.2 released

Bootstrap 4.1.2 is now available with new bug fixes and changes. Bootstrap is an HTML, CSS and JavaScript library for responsive, mobile-first projects. According to the team, after 4.1 the project ran into unexpected issues such as broken image URLs and a busted service worker. The latest release aims to address those issues as well as introduce a new docs directory structure.

Highlights of the release include: a fixed XSS vulnerability, improved query elements, inline SVGs enhancements and fixed issues with double transitions. More information is available here.

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Socialcast was first acquired by VMware in May 2011. At the time, the companies described the solution as a “collaboration platform [that] unites people, applications and data in real-time.”

“The acquisition of Socialcast lets us continue to move towards a user-centric environment, allowing organizations to deliver access to applications and data to any device, anywhere,” VMware wrote.

According to Mike Hicks, vice president of strategy at the digital workplace company Igloo Software, the product could not keep up with the other collaboration solutions on the market such as Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Hangouts.

“Businesses’ communication and collaboration needs are increasingly versatile. While an office social network can be a strong asset for certain forms of communication, it may not be an effective means for knowledge sharing, like providing employees with company guidelines or policies. Companies need a solution that can serve all their needs via a single platform. There is an overabundance of apps in the marketplace, and leaders are looking for solutions that integrate seamlessly and can house all communication and collaboration needs in one place. Unlike Socialcast, the leading platforms provide productivity, innovation and competitive advantage benefits, aside from just a social network,” Hicks said.

VMware plans to continue to support the platform for paid licenses until May 17, 2019, and will be working to find an alternative solution for users whose platform commitment extends beyond the year. VMware plans to decommission the free version by August 1, 2018. “We encourage you to begin investigating replacement options for your enterprise social collaboration solution and to export all data for your community prior to that date,” the company wrote.

Before choosing a new enterprise social solution, Hicks suggests Socialcast users do a retrospective of their time using Socialcast to determine the functionality they are looking for and the limitations they faced with the platform. “Socialcast customers should look at this as an opportunity to reframe their thinking and build a complete digital workplace that revolves around the 4 key pillars of communication, collaboration, knowledge management and culture, so they can move beyond the noise to start increasing productivity and building a strong corporate culture,” he said.

Enterprise collaboration solutions should be able to scale, provide a set of capabilities, and reduce the risk of silos. “For example, they need to do more than just allow employees to chat with one another. There needs to be other capabilities that allow for a fuller collaboration experience. For instance, a digital workplace helps employees collaborate, strengthen teams, and improve information sharing,” Hicks explained.

More information about Socialcast’s end of life is available here.

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“Our goal has always been to provide the best experience for our customers so they can move to the cloud with confidence. Expanding FastTrack to Windows 10 and Dynamics 365 represents our commitment to supporting customer success service for the Microsoft Cloud,” wrote Cyril Belikoff, senior director of Office marketing for Microsoft, in a blog post.

FastTrack for Office 365 now features SharePoint 2013 migration offer; Microsoft Teams support; new Office 365 ProPlus deployment best practices; new Office 365 user adoption best practices; ISO and HIPAA certifications; and expanded localization.

(Related: Microsoft previews the next update to Windows 10)

Similarly to FastTrack for Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security, FastTrack for Windows 10 and Dynamics 365 will feature resources and tools for onboarding and user adoption.

“FastTrack now serves more than 4,000 new customers every month,” wrote Belikoff. “We’re working with thousands of partners and customers worldwide, enabled over 22,000 customers and migrated a total of 3.7 petabytes of customer data to date. Every day, we help organizations worldwide, from major retailers like Macy’s to consulting services like Mott MacDonald and non-profit organizations like The Global Fund, embrace digital transformation and make their experience with Office 365 and EMS a success.”

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