Technology - Google News

Google Workspace goes all in on shadow IT - TechCrunch
Nintendo Switch outsells Wii, reaches 103 million sales in 5 years - Polygon
Microsoft to test new experimental Windows 11 features - The Verge

Google Workspace goes all in on shadow IT - TechCrunch

Posted: 03 Feb 2022 09:46 AM PST

Google today announced a new version of Workspace, the company's productivity service that you probably still refer to as G Suite. With the new — and free — Google Workspace Essentials plan, Google wants to bring more business users onto the platform by offering them the basic Workspace productivity tools — with the exception of Gmail.

Until now, in order to use Workspace with a non-Google email address, you had to sign up for the $6/month/user Business Starter account after a 14-day trial. That paid plan is not going away, but all you now need to do is sign up with your work email and you're good to go. No credit card needed.

The new free plan is essentially the existing entry-level Business Starter plan, but with a reduced storage quota of 15 GB (down from 30). Otherwise, though, you can use Google Meet with up to 100 users for up to 60 minutes in each call, get access to Spaces for work collaboration and Chat for gossiping about their co-workers. All of the standard tools like Sheets, Slides and Docs are also included, of course.

Since you already have an email address from work, though, there's no Gmail included in this edition, which makes sense, given that it would be tough to send out emails with your work address from there, leading to all kinds of confusion.

Image Credits: Google

There is a little complication here, though. There is a cap of 25 users per Essentials Starter team account. But multiple team accounts can be created within the same company. So basically, somebody from your team needs to start an account and can then invite other team members if you're working in a larger company.

With this move, Google is opening up a whole new world for shadow IT — and Google says as much in its announcement when it writes: "With Essentials Starter, we're making it easy for employees to choose their own productivity tools and bring modern collaboration to work." If IT doesn't make the choice, employees will make it for them.

This also opens up all kinds of questions about data governance and security.

"Google Workspace Essentials Starter was designed for people to easily start using Google Workspace at work by themselves or with their team," a Google spokesperson told me when I asked about this. "While it does include some lightweight admin controls — such as the ability to invite users to their team — granular IT controls and features like more advanced security are only available with paid Google Workspace plans."

Chances are, this will get any large enterprise that doesn't have a paid Workspace account yet to quickly sign up for one in order to block its employees from setting up their own.

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Nintendo Switch outsells Wii, reaches 103 million sales in 5 years - Polygon

Posted: 03 Feb 2022 06:30 AM PST

Nintendo Switch is now, officially, Nintendo's bestselling console of all time. Nintendo announced Thursday that, as of Dec. 31, 2021, the company has sold 103.54 million units, surpassing the Wii's lifetime sales of 101.63 million units. Switch reached 100 million sales faster than any other console to date, including competitors from Sony and Microsoft.

Nintendo seems confident that the Switch will continue its impressive sales pace, despite its age. According to a report from Bloomberg, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said on a call Thursday, "Switch is just in the middle of its lifecycle and the momentum going into this year is good. The Switch is ready to break a pattern of our past consoles that saw momentum weakening in their sixth year on the market and grow further."

The company lowered its forecast for Switch sales, however, due to chip shortages and supply chain issues, and expects to sell another 23 million consoles (down from a projected 24 million) in the coming quarter.

The Switch launched in March 2017 for $299.99, and will celebrate its fifth birthday next month, still holding steady at that price. Nintendo has released multiple models of the handheld-console hybrid system since then, including an updated version of the original Switch, the $199.99 Switch Lite, and the $349.99 Switch OLED Model, which launched in October.

Switch still has a long way to go before it succeeds Nintendo's bestselling dedicated handheld devices, however. According to Nintendo's publicly shared sales data, the Nintendo DS is still its all-time best seller, with more than 154 million units. The original Game Boy line (which includes the Game Boy Color), sold more than 118 million units.

Nintendo has an impressive lineup booked for 2022. A new entry in the Pokémon series, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, launched at the end of January, while Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Splatoon 3, Bayonetta 3, and the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are due later this year.

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Microsoft to test new experimental Windows 11 features - The Verge

Posted: 03 Feb 2022 11:00 AM PST

After revealing last week that Windows 11 is getting a bigger than usual update in February with Android apps, taskbar improvements, and much more, Microsoft is now detailing its plans for Windows 11 testing throughout 2022. The software maker says it plans to experiment more with features for Windows 11 testers to evaluate that may never ship.

"As part of this ongoing evolution, Insiders will see us lean more heavily on the Dev Channel as a place to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features," explains Amanda Langowski, the lead for the Windows Insider Program. "In some cases, these concepts will never ship, but by experimenting more, we can better refine experiences, and deliver solutions in Windows that truly empower our customers to achieve more."

We've seen some A/B testing like this before, where a subset of Windows Insiders will get access to a feature before Microsoft rolls it out more broadly to testers. In the future though, there could be variations on features that won't be fully documented by Microsoft. A number of Windows enthusiasts look out for new features every time Microsoft releases a new build, using flags in the operating system to switch hidden features on and see what Microsoft is experimenting with.

A user types on the Surface Pro 8 from behind. The screen displays the Windows 11 start menu on a white and blue background.

"We also recognize that some of our more technical Insiders have discovered that some features are intentionally disabled in the builds we have flighted," says Langowski. "This is by design, and in those cases, we will only communicate about features that we are purposefully enabling for Insiders to try out and give feedback on."

The Dev Channel for Windows 11 testing will now be truly where experimental features appear, leaving the Beta Channel to include features that are closer to what will ship to everyone. That could mean that new features even show up in the Beta Channel first, if they're closer to shipping.

Microsoft is now planning to give Windows 11 testers a window in which they can switch from the Dev Channel to the Beta Channel, to avoid the more experimental features that are on the way. That will likely coincide with the February release of features, including Android app support, taskbar changes, and the redesigned Notepad and Media Player apps.

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