February 2017

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Google Home ariving in the UK by June

Google Home (Made By Google)

The cover over the base is modular, and is available in various colors with the purpose of blending it around home decor. The current colors available are mango, marine, and violet (fabric-covered), carbon, snow, and copper (metal).

Google has confirmed it will launch its smart speaker in the UK before the end of June

Google Home “is a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant. Ask it questions. Tell it to do things. It’s your own Google, always ready to help” Home (Made By Google) was released in the US on November 4, 2016 for $129 USD, but has yet to go on sale elsewhere.

The search giant disclosed its roll-out plan to the BBC at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.

It will compete with Amazon’s Echo range, which became available in the UK in September. Microsoft has also previewed a speaker powered by its virtual assistant Cortana.

Google Home is 5.62 inches (143 millimetres) high, and 3.79 inches (96 millimetres) in diameter. It weighs 16.8 ounces (480 grams). The design represents a modular cylindrical shape, and has 4 LEDs on the top that are in the same colors as Google’s logo that indicate power. The top surface is a capacitive touch panel, which can be used to pause music, adjust volume, trigger the Google Assistant and includes dual microphones, and for privacy concerns, has a mute button for the microphone to silence all communications to it.

Google’s device is powered by a version of its Assistant artificial intelligence software.

Unlike Amazon’s rival Alexa, it can support conversations in which the user asks follow-up questions to their initial request, and also taps into the firm’s market-leading Google Search service.

Google Home is a smart speaker developed by Google as part of its “Made By Google” product line: https://madeby.google.com/home.

Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) v6.1 – It’s here!

Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) v6.1

Synology today unveiled the public release of their new NAS operating system. DiskStation Manager (DSM) v6.1 has been in testing for a new months but becomes available for all to download today.

The latest iteration of the software focuses on enhanced security and ease of use, with a range of new under the hood and user-taregted features available for modern Synology NAS servers. Here’s a run down of what’s new:

Next-generation file system: The extended coverage of the Btrfs file system enables advanced data protection technologies on more Synology NAS models, including file self-healing and instant SMB server-side copy.

Active Directory Server: Transform your Synology NAS to serve as a domain controller and streamline IT maintenance by creating policies to automatically install certain software or system updates on all of your employees’ computers without having to visit each one individually.

Shared folder encryption: Encrypt pre-existing shared folders, including the homes folder, whenever you need. For higher security and convenience, you can now mount encrypted folders automatically using a physical USB flash drive without having to memorize encryption keys.

Seagate IronWolf Health Management (IHM): Synology has partnered with Seagate to exclusively bring Seagate’s IronWolf Health Management tool to NAS products. With intelligent analysis and user-actionable information, the status of IronWolf and IronWolf Pro hard drives on Synology NAS with DSM 6.1 and above can be closely monitored, keeping users’ data continuously safeguarded. Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of storage at Seagate, commented, “The Seagate and Synology partnership is raising the bar for NAS storage even further. Seagate’s IronWolf NAS-optimized specialty drives and IronWolf Health Management is one of many steps by Seagate and Synology to deliver the best possible NAS user experience.”

New Apps:
Synology Universal Search: A powerful search tool (Ctrl + F) that helps users find everything including multimedia/applications on their Synology NAS and offers quick preview into file contents and metadata with just one click.

USB Copy 2.0: For those who often store data on USB drives, USB Copy is a convenient tool that allows users to back up files to or from a Synology NAS by simply plugging in a USB storage device. The customizable rules allow users to specify exactly which folders should be copied.

Refined data protection

Snapshot Replication: Snapshot Replication in DSM 6.1 introduces encrypted shared folder replication for data-sensitive businesses, local replication for an additional layer of protection, and automatic pause/resume during replication to efficiently optimize network bandwidth.

Hyper Backup: The latest version of Hyper Backup keeps backups safe thanks to advanced integrity checks, reduces storage consumption with enhanced data deduplication, and allows users to customize and fine-tune version retention policies.

Synology High Availability: When deploying a high-availability cluster, Synology High Availability supports running S.M.A.R.T. tests and enabling SSD TRIM on both of the servers, and allows users to add a quorum server to effectively reduce the occurrence of split-brain, thus maximizing service continuity and data consistency.

Virtual DSM Manager: The beta release allows users to seamlessly migrate virtual instances of DSM between two Synology NAS while keeping data stored on a third machine in order to avoid service downtime. In addition, by leveraging snapshot technologies available on Btrfs volumes, Virtual DSM Manager can clone and restore entire machines within seconds.
More great features: The advanced NAS operating system also introduces RAID F1 for XS-series and SMB 4.4 upgrade for sparse file support.

You can find out more about the new features in DSM 6.1 at: https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm/6.1/features.