Google has announced a new Time Insights mode for its Calendar app that will show you how you spend your time, how many meetings you have, and who you spend most of your time working with. 

Google Calendar has become a powerhouse in the era of remote work, as it helps distributed teams better manage their schedules and share them across a group or company. Soon, it will offer even more with the new Time Insights mode that offers a deep dive into your daily doings.

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Time Insights will give you a close look at the information that will help you better understand your day. It will show you your time breakdown, which displays your working hours and the various types of meetings you have. It will also give you insight into the time you spend in meetings, highlighting days and times especially heavy on meetings. 

Another key insight will be a look into who you are meeting with and the ability to “pin” key stakeholders to ensure you keep the lines of communication flowing. This feature will also highlight all your meetings involving a specific person if you hover over them in the Calendar app. 

All this information will only be visible to you — your manager will not have access to these insights — unless you give someone “manage time sharing access” permissions. 

Google began rolling out the new Time Insights update to admins on August 30, and it plans to complete admin distribution within 15 days. 

End users on Google’s Rapid Release track will start seeing Time Insights on September 6. Those on Google’s Scheduled Release track will see the rollout begin on September 20. Google expects to complete end-user distribution within 15 days of the initial release.

Google Calendar Time Insights will be available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Nonprofits customers only. It will be visible on a computer only — the smartphone app will not gain the new feature. 

According to Google, Time Insights will be active by default, but admins can deactivate it at the domain/OU level. 

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Microsoft has been slowly making Teams a more collaborative environment, including the fall release of Teams Meetings and its subsequent upgrades. At Microsoft Build 2021, the tech giant announced a handful of Teams updates that’ll continue the path toward a more collaborative offering.

At Build 2021, Microsoft announced it’ll give developers significantly more liberty within the interface. This freedom will begin with Teams no longer relegating third-party apps to the sidebars. Instead, Teams is testing a main-stage collaboration tool that’ll allow these apps to live front and centre on the main screen.

This would be useful for a brainstorming session where there’s a whiteboard in the middle of the meeting for jotting down ideas and key points.

Teams will also allow developers to create custom scenes for company meetings. They can also use APIs that allow them to automate key tasks at specific times during a meeting. For example, reminding the host to start a wrap-up Q&A session with at least 15 minutes remaining.

Real-time transcription, translation, and note-taking during meetings are slated to arrive this summer. Of course, admins will have the ability to activate and deactivate these features with ease. This way, if there is a meeting that involves sensitive or confidential details, you can deactivate these services to keep the information secure.

Finally, using Fluid Framework components, Microsoft plans to allow users to work on tables, lists, and text fields in one Teams conversation and copy them into another conversion or into an Office 365 app. These files would also be editable by colleagues in real time.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, collaboration and video conferencing software providers have been booming. Teams has been among those seeing quite the boost, as the company now says it has over 145 million daily users. And with remote working here to stay for many companies, now’s the perfect time for Microsoft to show off the flexibility of Teams.

Red Hat has announced it’s teaming with Samsung to help deliver 5G network solutions across various use cases, including 5G core, edge computing, IoT and machine learning.

This collaboration will be built atop Red Hat OpenShift, which Red Hat calls the “most comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes platform.” It will also include other components of Red Hat’s proven hybrid cloud portfolio, including  Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage. 

Samsung will chip in with its 5G vRAN, vCore, MEC and management and analytics to expand 5G use cases. 

This new solution will allow providers to capitalize on edge economics and vRAN. According to Red Hat’s ACG report, operators can extend TCO benefits gained in horizontal designs in the core by using common horizontal infrastructure in 5G core and edge computing.

Operators can also support new applications and services based on location awareness, reduced latency and scalability in the distributed cloud when deploying horizontal clouds to vRAN sites.  

On top of all this, Red Hat has given Samsung’s virtual network functions its VNF certification, and it plans to give Samsung’s containerized network functions its CNF certification soon. These certifications are the highest standard for critical functions on Red Hat OpenShift and ensure vendors can effectively prepare their applications for a cloud-native future running in production on Red Hat OpenShift. 

These certified solutions help customers quickly reach their full 5G capabilities. With 5G rollout already underway, this partnership should help accelerate its spread. 

Wonil Roh, senior vice president and head of product strategy, networks business at Samsung Electronics said of the collaboration: “We are pleased to collaborate with Red Hat to help service providers stay competitive in this increasingly demanding global 5G market, especially on the cloud-native front.

«Through this partnership, Samsung 5G solutions will provide a highly efficient and reliable network experience for our customers by integration with Red Hat’s cloud-native solution.”

Chris Wright, senior vice president and chief technology officer and Red Hat said: “As service providers build 5G networks, they are forming the foundation for the next wave of cross-industry innovation.

«From helping businesses in their edge computing solutions to ensuring enterprises can successfully deploy their artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, we expect these services to be built on a proven, cloud-native infrastructure.

«We’re very excited to work with Samsung to bring this Kubernetes-driven solution to help service providers and their customers focus on complex and competitive use cases across the enterprise to every industry.”