Zoom Video Communications has had an astonishing rise in 2020, emerging as the go-to service for work meetings and family get-togethers during the pandemic. Now the company is considering whether it could replicate its success in video in an even more competitive market: corporate email [Editor’s note: the link is paywalled; alternative source]. The Information: The company has begun developing a…
Tag: Productivity
Google Delays Return To Office and Eyes ‘Flexible Work Week’
With the pandemic still in full swing and the first doses of a coronavirus vaccine just starting to ship in the United States, Google has pushed back the planned return to the office by a few months, to September 2021. From a report: But even as it extends the remote work period for most of its staff, Google is laying out…
Python Beats Java Again in New GitHub Annual Report
This week the Microsoft-owned code repository site GitHub released its annual report with statistics about its community, writes programming columnist Mike Melanson: The report offers a deep dive into three specific areas, with a look at developer productivity in the time of COVID, community and collaboration, and open source security. Highlights include increased productivity with 35% more repositories created in 2020…
Microsoft Will Remove User Names from ‘Productivity Score’ Feature After Privacy Backlash
Microsoft says it will make changes in its new Productivity Score feature, including removing the ability for companies to see data about individual users, to address concerns from privacy experts that the tech giant had effectively rolled out a new tool for snooping on workers. From a report: “Going forward, the communications, meetings, content collaboration, teamwork, and mobility measures in Productivity…
Microsoft Also Patented Tech to Score Meetings Using Filmed Body Language, Facial Expressions
Remember when Microsoft was criticized for enabling “workplace surveillance” over “productivity scores” in its Microsoft 365 office software which gave managers highly detailed profiles of each individual employee’s activity. Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:
The Microsoft 365 Productivity Score apparently has roots in another Microsoft patent application for Systems, Methods, and Software for Implementing a Behavior Change Management Program, which also lays…
Microsoft Productivity Score Feature Criticised as Workplace Surveillance
Microsoft has been criticised for enabling “workplace surveillance” after privacy campaigners warned that the company’s “productivity score” feature allows managers to use Microsoft 365 to track their employees’ activity at an individual level. From a report: The tools, first released in 2019, are designed to “provide you visibility into how your organisation works,” according to a Microsoft blogpost, and aggregate information…
Demand For Employee Surveillance Increased As Workers Transitioned To Home Working
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: A new study shows that the demand for employee surveillance software was up 55% in June 2020 compared to the pre-pandemic average. From webcam access to random screenshot monitoring, these surveillance software products can record almost everything an employee does on their computer. VPN review website Top10VPN used its global monitoring data to…
Cats cost Australia A$6 billion a year by spreading diseases
Toxoplasmosis and cat scratch disease, which spread parasites and bacteria, cost Australia billions each year in lost productivity and medical costs Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2257684-cats-cost-australia-a6-billion-a-year-by-spreading-diseases/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Google’s Internal Data Suggests Employees Feel Less Productive At Home
The Information reports:
Google’s engineering directors are grappling with a worrisome trend: internal data that indicate productivity during the coronavirus shutdowns deteriorated among engineers, particularly newly hired ones. One internal survey viewed by The Information found that in the three months ended in June, only 31% of the company’s engineers polled felt they had been highly productive, down 8 percentage points from…
What If They Replaced Windows With Microsoft Linux?
Following up on speculation from Eric Raymond and ZDNet contributing editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, open source advocate Jack Wallen imagines what would happen if Microsoft just switched over altogether from Windows to a Linux distro named “Microsoft Linux”: A full-on Linux distribution released by Microsoft would mean less frustration for all involved. Microsoft could shift its development efforts on the Windows…