AppleHomePod now runs software based on tvOSas it moves to develop a more sophisticated smart home platform.

Homes are computers

Smart home technology is evolving.It is becoming clear that connected devices inside homes need platforms powerful enough to deliver the convenience on which these things are sold, while also bringing the security, privacy and automation advantages we used to read about in sci-fi novels.

I&ve written about some of the unexpected problems that have shown themselves since the first HomeKit device appeared.As the intelligence inside these devices grows, those challenges will become more complex to resolve.

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Creeping erosion of privacy? Desperately needed technology-based solution to a global life-or-death problem? A little of both? Here is what we think we know now about the Apple/Google contact tracing technologyannounced on Friday.

What has happened?

Apple and Google are working together to develop COVID-19 contact tracing technologyfor both Android and iOS devices.

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This pilot fish supports a couple of clients that use satellite internet. Fish has used his own email address to set them both up with the small service provider, and itnot a problem because the login is by client number.

But then that small service provider is bought by a bigger one, which gets bought by an even bigger one, which in fact is one of the tech behemoths. That company sends fish an email saying he has to re-register.

Actually, it sends two mails, one for each customer fish represents. Fish goes to the registration website and inputs all the information for Client 1. No problems, but he suspects the account login is now linked to his email address.

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Millions of people across a diverse array of industries are working from home for the foreseeable future. For some, ittheir first time doing so for more than a few days at a time. While we&ve all been adjusting to remote work, we&ve become increasingly reliant on collaboration tools such as Slack, Zoom and Microsoft Teams & but are they actually making us more productive? And once itsafe to return to an office, will employees be willing to give up their remote work lifestyles? ComputerworldMatthew Finnegan joins Juliet to talk collaboration, effectively working from home and how remote work tools will shape the events business and entire industries.

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You&ve lost your job and now you face an obsolete, sluggish unemployment system that feels like it was written in the 1950s. Actually, itmore than a feeling. If you&re in New Jersey, New York or Connecticut, your unemployment system was written in 60-year-old Cobol. Meanwhile, if you want to apply for unemployment benefits online in Washington, D.C., the system insists you use Internet Explorer. As I recall, IE was put out to pasture five years ago.

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Patch Tuesday arrives tomorrow, April 14, later in the month than usual. Microsoft has had a truly wretched series of patches going out the chute on Patch Tuesdays.

In spite of what you&ve read and all those Chicken Little cries of impending doom, we haven&t seen a single bonafide emergency security patch in more than a year.

To be sure, we&ve seen a bunch of dire warnings that simply never came true. We've also seen more than our fair share of buggy patches. Don't believe it? Herea detailed list going back almost three years.

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