Microsoft Shake-Up
Big changes at Microsoft. The company is completely restructuring saying that they’re moving away from the model of having different divisions withing the company and instead focusing on delivering a family of devices and services.
The previous corporate structure at Microsoft had been criticized for promoting a lack of cooperation among departments. According to a memo sent to employees by company head Steve Ballmer, “All parts of the company will share and contribute to the success of core offerings, like Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox, Surface, Office 365 and our EA offer, Bing, Skype, Dynamics, Azure and our servers. All parts of the company will contribute to activating high-value experiences for our customers.”
The new divisions include: engineering, marketing and business development.
Twitter Tailors Ads To Users’ Interests
Twitter is experimenting with a way to customize promoted content by tailoring the content to products and services that users have shown interest in. The company will use browser-related information such as cookies shared with them by their ad partners to determine the users’ interests.
Users will have the option to opt out by un-checking the box next to promoted content in account settings. This will not remove ads from your Twitter feed, but will disable ads specifically targeted to your interests.
Feds Uninvited From DEF CON Hacker Conference
For twenty years DEF CON has been a place where academics, hackers, computer security pros and government officials have met and shared ideas. Over the years, the hackers at DEF CON have uncovered serious security flaws in major companies’ systems, phones and tablets.
However this year, in the wake of the NSA spying scandal, the conference has a message for the Feds: We need some time apart.
In a blog post on the DEF CON website it said, When it comes to sharing and socializing with feds, recent revelations have made many in the community uncomfortable about this relationship. Therefore, I think it would be best for everyone involved if the feds call a “time-out” and not attend DEF CON this year.”
DEF CON runs August 1st thru 4th this year.
~ Cynthia