Milestone For Microsoft As Its Bing Search Passes The 100 Million Daily Active User Mark

Things are looking fantastic for Microsoft after the software giant was seen speaking about crossing the 100 million daily active user mark.

For those who might not be aware, this is a huge achievement as it’s the world’s second most popular search engine. And this particular milestone was made possible due to the introduction of the chat capabilities belonging to Bing.

It’s clearly making waves on the web and in case you might not be aware, the new Bing version is dedicated to leveraging some huge language models that are created by the likes of OpenAI. The latter is the creator of ChatGPT and it’s now optimized for the world of search.

When combined with some great real-time capabilities linked to Bing, it might end up giving great results. But for now, we’re still seeing it function as a part of the preview stage. Moreover, we’re seeing it give out some massively impressive results too.

And with time, Microsoft continues to send out improvements that are seen frequently as a means of preventing aggressiveness.

Similarly, the company notes how there are millions making use of this Bing preview that continues to expand to more people out there. And out of such individuals, one-third are really new to this Bing search.

• Related: What Will Be the Biggest Tech Trend of 2023?

This just shows how huge of a role it plays in impacting the new version of Bing Search by Microsoft in terms of its popularity. Microsoft also mentioned how engagement continues to grow as we speak. And so many different users are carrying out different types of searches.

Today, Bing’s mobile version entails the likes of voice search which significantly contributes to the growth of Bing. And with time, around 15% of the users of the chatbot are requesting it to produce more content.

Moreover, one very interesting bit of data that we saw recently had to do with Microsoft claiming that its web search rankings have really taken huge leaps in terms of relevancy. And it’s all thanks to a new language model being used. Today, the quality of search results is higher and better than ever.

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The news is fabulous for Bing. Although it might be holding the second position in terms of popularity and definitely does not have the same number of users as the search engine giant, things are definitely moving in its direction.

There is promising growth here and it is just what Microsoft was in search of and needed to attract more advertisers to its platform. After all, making Bing a profitable endeavor is definitely one of the company’s targets today.

Read next: Remote Work Caused Data Breaches for 62% of Organizations
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

What Will Be the Biggest Tech Trend of 2023?

With markets suffering from shock after shock and the tech industry experiencing one of its worst downturns in decades, all eyes are on the next big trend. Revealing the trend is important because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up shaping the fate of the tech industry as a whole. It turns out that there are several contenders that could prove to be the next big thing.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that AI will obviously have a tremendous role to play here. Its role will also be rather synergistic with that of blockchain, since AI can be used to make it far more secure than might have been the case otherwise.

Security will be another major trend for 2023. Zero trust security has already become quite important, but in spite of the fact that this is the case it can still be improved. With real time computing becoming all the more prevalent thanks to improved cloud infrastructure, it will be interesting to see how the two might end up going together with all things having been considered and taken into account.

AI will also be quite important from a completely different viewpoint. Generative AI has the potential to upset the delicate balance of countless industries. ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion have already started doing that, and it will be interesting to see what comes next since this is just the first wave and there will likely be a lot of improvements in the near future.

All in all, 2023 is shaping up to be the most exciting year for tech since the mid 90s. That was when the internet and personal computers started to become commonplace. Big names like Bill Gates have said that AI can be like the internet, in the sense that we have no way of predicting what it’s true potential will end up looking like. We will just have to wait and see to figure out how it might change things once and for all.

H/T: Counter Point Research

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Remote Work Caused Data Breaches for 62% of Organizations

One of the biggest changes that occurred in the professional landscape in recent years has to do with an increased desire among employees to be able to work remotely. Working from home is no longer a luxury, since the pandemic made it far more normalized than might have been the case otherwise. In spite of the fact that this is the case, it turns out that work from home options don’t come without their fair share of problems for organizations.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that a study conducted by Fortinet revealed some concerning insights into the state of remote work. Based on the findings in the research titled Work From Anywhere – Global Study, 62% of organizations offering remote work options ended up suffering from data breaches that could have been prevented if the employees had been coming in to the office.

Around 60% of the 570 organizations who participated in this survey said that they have offered remote work because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up helping their employees balance work and home lives. 55% are trying to go for a hybrid work strategy, since this can offer a middle path that can cater to all involved parties.

However, the security issues that can arise due to working from home simply can’t be ignored. If an employee is working from their residence, they might not have the same level of cybersecurity that would be standardized in office spaces.

This might not be enough to make remote work options go away for good, but it is something that organizations will nonetheless be forced to take into consideration in the short term. Employees will continue to request the option to work from home. It is up to organizations to figure out how they can offer this option to them without compromising on the security of their data. If all else fails, they might not be able to continue allowing employees to work from various remote locations outside the office.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Google One Vows To Offer VPN Services And Dark Web Monitoring To Subscribers For Free

Google One Subscribers are about to be treated after the app recently promised to enhance privacy and security across the platform.

The company is going to soon roll out some very interesting security features in the form of VPN services and monitoring on the dark web with no additional costs attached.

The respective rollout is expected as early as the next week, Google confirmed.

For starters, subscribers will be getting free VPN services that protect user data through the simple process of encryption of their online browsing sessions. Similarly, it hopes to disguise the IP address and that would protect against anyone trying to eavesdrop including hackers located on dangerous networks.

While being the process of transit, unsecured data may be intercepted by the likes of hackers that compromise some very integral privacy features and the general security system, Google confirmed.

This particular VPN service will end up working across different Android, Mac, Windows, and iOS devices while shared with nearly five different group members belonging to the same family.

Google also mentioned how this new free-of-cost VPN service would never be seen tracking, selling, selling, or making use of users’ online activities, be it IP address or the respective network traffic.

Next up, it hopes to introduce more services that monitor the activity of people on the dark web so users know when or if their personal details are getting compromised or not. Therefore, any free service would scan the dark web for more details linked to personal information belonging to members like name, email, phone number, address, and social security numbers. This would further go on to alert users regarding any more sensitive data that are located.

Therefore, subscribers are going to be given the chance to select the type of data they wish to monitor and when it’s found, the respective guidance on this front would be provided by Google so this data remains secure.

If it’s stolen, the necessary protocols for stolen information would be implied. For instance, any lost or stolen data would be sent out as a report to the government. Moreover, users would be similarly forced to sign up for the likes of a credit monitoring service.

And in the case of other data breaches taking place on the dark web, all users would be kept informed at all times.

Read next: What Country Has the Highest Adoption Rate for VPNs in the World?
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

More Concerns For TikTok As Whistleblower Says American Data Is Being Abused By Chinese Officials

The news about TikTok serving as an imminent threat to America’s national security and interest continues to grow as we speak. And now, a whistleblower is making more allegations of abuse of data belonging to US citizens.

It’s definitely not the type of news that any firm would wish to hear, especially when the Senate and Congress are racing ahead of time to give President Biden exclusive powers to ban the application as a whole in the nation.

The company was reported as mentioning how their command of data belonging to US users is so much weaker than that observed. This was sent out to the office of Senator Josh Hawley.

But a new whistleblower’s allegations are counteracting such claims. They stated how the firm is actually overstating its separation from China and instead, appears to be deeply involved with officials belonging to the Chinese government. Moreover, it further elaborated on how much emphasis is placed on the likes of Chinese software which may have backdoors and actually ends up using tools that enable employees to switch between user data in both the US and China.

Senators are now raising eyebrows at how serious of a situation this can turn out to be in the end and they’re also now contradicting all the statements made in the public eye by the company's top executives.

Last year in September, the whistleblower says the firm’s COO mentioned boldly how there was a strict checking system in place that held tight control over data getting accessed in places like the US. During that time, both Forbes and Reuters highlighted how employees were gaining the wrong types of access to user data in the US.

The whistleblower revealed how the access to data controls by TikTok is just superficial at its absolute best. One particular example is how so many officials from China’s communist party can alter between Chinese and American Data with nothing more than a simple button clicks through a tool called Dorado.

But if that news was not dramatic enough, the whistleblower explained to the Senator’s office how it has seen firsthand how engineers based in the country are flipping over to datasets that aren’t owned by China and using tasks that aren’t scheduled as a leading backup for data analysis and aggregation. So it would not be wrong to say that both TikTok and Bytedance are very similar in nature.

So many calls, as well as bans, are being announced for TikTok for leaking data to China but the app says it’s innocent in this regard and is doing everything to prove that all allegations made against it are indeed baseless.

TikTok says it is innocent and is not sharing user data of Americans and is committed to a strong deal of security and privacy for years.

They further fought back against the allegations by claiming that all the tools outlined were basically for the sole purpose of analysis and nothing else. And all data belonging to US citizens is protected and channeled by the American division of TikTok’s Data Security.

Is that convincing enough? Well, we’re not too sure about this.

H/T: Axios

Read next: TikTok Outlines New Data Policy To Convince EU Lawmakers That It’s Not A Security Threat
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

TikTok Outlines New Data Policy To Convince EU Lawmakers That It’s Not A Security Threat

TikTok has been making some major headlines recently after speculations hint at a potential ban of the app across the US.

Therefore, the app is doing whatever it can to prevent its ban in places like Europe as it fights to stay in the US. The company is working hard to convince respective lawmakers in this region that it’s not a leading security threat.

The initiative is called Project Clover and the respective guidelines are going to see the app put forward some major security gateways. This would govern employees with great access to various user information across Europe and even some huge data transfers seen outside the continent.

As mentioned in the past, data requests would only be needed to abide by data protection laws in place at the local level.

Moreover, the app says a security company owned by a third party would be responsible for taking a look at TikTok and its new security controls. In the same way, it would be busy conducting audits for the firm’s data practices.

In the same way, the third party would be working hard to look over things like data flows and even go about reporting some major incidents as we speak. The app says it is going to have some more information regarding this soon as plans are currently in place to collaborate with different partners so various technologies can get implemented.

As a whole, this would work to enhance and alter the respective data policies in place.

As per the TikTok app, a new internal team says it is busy working on the Project since 2022. And it really does hope to bring a greater change in this aspect by the year 2023. Meanwhile, the app also mentioned some more plans regarding the opening of new data centers situated in the likes of Ireland and Norway. These would again be operated and overlooked by third parties in the region and would be operable via the likes of renewable energy.

The firm hopes to start storing user data belonging to European users in a local manner by this year’s start. And that would cost the firm a staggering 1.2 billion Euros. But TikTok is not too worried on this front. They know that they’re leading the pack on this front as they wish to earn the trust of its users across the board and this was confirmed by the app’s Vice President today.

The announcement has arisen at a time when the European Commission opted to ban its own staff members from downloading the TikTok app on their work phones. If the firm’s new policy is enough to stop European lawmakers from putting forward additional limits, only time can tell.

But this new announcement dubbed project Texas is definitely a new venture. Moreover, we’re seeing this happen as the US division of ByteDance tries to work with Oracle to gain more trust from Americans so that all US traffic belongings to users in that region pass through this infrastructure. By the looks of it, it’s not doing a great job of convincing people.

Read next: TikTok's US Division Ready To Subject Itself To ‘Trust-No-One’ Level Of Scrutiny
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Global Marketing Spend Growth Decreases Amidst Economic Woes

The total amount of money that is spent on marketing is useful to consider because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up revealing the trajectory of the economy. The past few years have not been kind to the marketing industry, but in spite of the fact that this is the case there were some hopeful signs that could be seen back in 2022.

Global marketing spends increased by around 7.9% in 2022, reaching a record total of $1.568 trillion with all things having been considered and taken into account. However, 2023 has seen this growth rate decrease somewhat, and it is predicted that the growth rate will continue to be lower which will make the marketing industry somewhat less profitable than might have been the case otherwise.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the projected growth rate for marketing spends in 2023 is estimated to be around 5.3%. That will bring the total global marketing spend to around $1.651 trillion. This is a healthy growth rate, but it pales in comparison to what was occurring just a year prior.

The US continues to be a bright spot in terms of marketing spends, however. Ad budgets in the US are outpacing spends in other parts of the world in terms of growth. For example, in the US, it is estimated that marketing spends will increase by 5.9% in 2023 which is over half a point higher than what is being seen in other countries around the world.

This isn’t the first time that the US has outpaced the rest of the world either. In 2022, the US saw a marketing spending uptick of 8.5%, which outstripped the global spend increase by a similar margin. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future. The US is starting to become an increasingly significant player in the world of marketing. That could give the global superpower even more of an upper hand in yet another arena since it is not impacted by economic woes quite as much.

H/T: PQMedia

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World