Microsoft will release a new perpetual Office license in 2021, you’ll soon be able to use Google Maps to keep tabs on COVID outbreaks in your area, and Shopify nabs two employees who stole customer data.
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Friday, September 25, and I’m your host Alex Coop.
It’s not all about subscriptions at Microsoft, the company has announced that it will release a new perpetual version of Microsoft Office in the second half of 2021. While Microsoft has been pushing hard on getting people to subscribe to Office 365, there’s still a subset of users who prefer a permanent license for a one-time fee. The drawback is that unlike the subscription model, the perpetual license doesn’t receive feature upgrades nor additional OneDrive storage. Microsoft typically releases a new perpetual license every three years. The last version, Office 2019, was released in 2018.
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Google Maps may soon become the go-to app to check on COVID spread in your area. Starting this week, the Maps app will begin to show 7-day average COVID cases per 100,000 people. The regions will be colored in one of six shades to indicate the outbreak severity. Users need to manually activate the overlay in the settings menu. In its blog post, Google wrote that it collects data from multiple authoritative sources including Johns Hopkins, the New York Times, and Wikipedia, which in turn get their data from WHO, government health authorities, and hospitals. [Twitter]
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Shopify has recently caught two employees who stole customer information from the company’s merchants. Shopify said that less than 200 merchants were affected in their breach, but is unsure of how many of their customers’ data were leaked by proxy. Stolen information includes email addresses and purchase history, which can be used to predict a person’s life situation. Fortunately, no financial information was leaked. The company emphasized that its security system was not to blame and that they’re working with the FBI to further investigate the matter.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Alex Coop, thanks for listening.