(This post originally appeared on Forbes)
Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
1 — What Facebook’s latest video ranking updates mean for your small business.
Facebook has announced it will modify its News Feed algorithm to reward creators who publish video content that sees longer average watch times and generates more repeat views. In addition, Pages posting unoriginal or re-purposed videos will be penalized through limited access to visibility and monetization. This means small businesses should think about how to keep audiences coming back, should post their strongest images/video clips first, and should ensure content is original to get optimum visibility. (Source: Social Media Today)
Why this is important for your business:
If you’re creating videos for your business you’ll need to step up your game. They need to be original, relevant and shorter. You need to track the views carefully and focus on the content that draws the most. Emphasize quality over quantity. Otherwise, all the work you put into your videos may be for naught because fewer people will ever get to see them.
2 — Lenovo is making an all-screen foldable laptop.
This week at its annual sales event, Lenovo introduced the ThinkPad X1 foldable prototype laptop after demonstrating a working prototype of the device earlier in May. The company says that it envisions the X1 replacing people’s daily computer because it provides a large-screen Windows device in a small package. The price for the new device hasn’t been revealed yet, but Lenovo’s X1 line of products is generally reserved for its high-end computers. (Source: Quartz)
Why this is important for your business:
Foldable devices are coming. Many of the major makers – from Samsung to Lenovo – are starting to bring to market with this type of hardware and although most are pricey you can expect costs to decline in the not-so-distant future. Once these devices are more mature, you and your employees will be relying on them for travel and customer presentations.
3 — Over 25,000 smart Linksys routers are leaking sensitive data.
This week, a Bad Packets security researcher discovered that more than 25,000 Linksys Smart Wi-Fi routers—mostly in the U.S.—could be vulnerable to remote exploit by attackers. This could lead to the leak of sensitive information such as MAC addresses, device names, operating system types, and even WAN settings, firewall status, firmware update settings, and DDNS configurations. Such leaks could help hackers compromise IoT routers and steal data and could also lead to potential enslavement into botnet setups.
Linksys says: “We responded to a vulnerability submission from Bad Packets on May 7th, 2019 regarding a potential sensitive information disclosure flaw: CVE-2014-8244 (which was fixed in 2014). We quickly tested the router models flagged by Bad Packets using the latest publicly available firmware (with default settings) and have not been able to reproduce CVE-2014-8244; meaning that it is not possible for a remote attacker to retrieve sensitive information via this technique. (Source: ZDNet)
Why this is important for your business:
This incident should serve as a reminder that, whether you think you’re affected or not, you really should download the most recent firmware updates for routers – Linksys or not – and make sure that you’re running the most recent software.
4 — Small-business owners are stressed and struggling to unplug, data shows.
A new survey by OnePoll on behalf of GoDaddy shows that small-business owners spend 17 days a year worrying about business-related issues outside working hours. In addition, more than half (51%) say they have trouble switching off from work during periods when they’re not supposed to be focusing on company-related tasks. In fact, 41% say they often get pulled into business matters when trying to unplug. (Source: Yahoo! Finance)
Why this is important for your business:
According to the above report, experts suggest scheduling breaks during the week, taking vacations, outsourcing, and practicing self-care in order to ease the tension. Wasn’t technology supposed to make our life better?
5— WiFi 6: better, faster internet is coming—here’s what you need to know.
WiFi 6 is making its debut this year, and, in addition to the fact that it’s 30% faster than WiFi 5, there’s more to know. First of all, it’s an upgraded standard that compatible devices, particularly routers, can take advantage of. It’s designed to allow network access points like routers communicate more efficiently with more users and devices at once, which helps them use less power. Wi-Fi 6 routers will be able to pack more information into each signal they send, so they can communicate with devices faster and more efficiently. And, best of all, Wi-Fi 6 access points will also be smarter about scheduling when devices should wake up and request information. (Source: CNET)
Why this is important for your business:
As you invest in network upgrades, be sure that you’re moving to routers that support WIFI 6.
