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There’s an ad out right now for Google’s Chromebook laptop with a slogan that says, “Switch to a new way to laptop.” While I’m hesitant to disparage any of our digital overlords for fear of being stricken from search results, I feel obligated to take a stand. You can’t “laptop” something; “laptop” isn’t a verb.While I try my hardest to keep things positive here at Grammar Guy H.Q., certain things grate my grammar gears. While I’ve touched on the “verbification” of nouns before, I haven’t explored how marketers and company names have verbified nouns ad nauseam.I know I’ve seen other...

Workers at one of the world’s largest call center companies said additional monitoring would violate the privacy of their families in their home.. Colombia-based call center workers who provide outsourced customer service to some of the nation’s largest companies are being pressured to sign a contract that lets their employer install cameras in their homes to monitor work performance, an NBC News investigation has found. Six workers based in Colombia for Teleperformance, one of the world’s largest call center companies, which counts Apple, Amazon and Uber among its clients, said that they are concerned about the new contract, first issued...

As one American university after another suspended research ties with Huawei for its alleged ties to Chinese espionage, MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte offered a full-throttle defense of the company. "Don't ban Huawei," read a May 2019 column published under Negroponte's name. "The U.S. should collaborate with leading technology companies and their research labs, rather than banning them." Negroponte, however, did not write the column, at least according to Huawei employee Winter Wright, who noted on his LinkedIn profile that he ghostwrote the article on behalf of the MIT scholar, whose research center has received millions of dollars in...

I just noticed a new icon on my Windows Task Bar (Meet Now).

Facebook employees have been caught leaving glowing reviews on Amazon for Facebook's new video-chat device. Facebook released the Portal, a video-chat and smart-speaker device, in October. It's the first hardware product built and sold under the Facebook brand. The new gadget has already faced some hardship, as Facebook acknowledged that it could collect data about its owners to help the company target ads at people.

Microsoft will ban 'offensive language' and 'inappropriate content' from Skype, Xbox, Office and other services on May 1, claiming it has the right to go through your private data to 'investigate.' Better watch out if you are playing Xbox, get ticked, and cuss. Microsoft might ban you for the “offensive language.” If they do, then say bye-bye to your Xbox Gold Membership and any Microsoft account balances.Or if you and a significant other are getting hot and heavy via Skype, you better watch your language and any nudity because that, too, can get you banned. The ban hammer could also...

Hello all. I haven't used Skype in about two years. I just downloaded the app to my new-ish tablet and put in my old handle (username) -- but Skype didn't recognize it. So, I tried to login with the email associated with my account -- and this time, the login worked. Did Microsoft make some change to Skype in the last two years, eliminating the use of usernames? If so, this is annoying, as my username is what I've been putting on my resume for the last year. Thanks all.

For years Americans' right to privacy, as granted by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, has come under threat as the country's surveillance systems have grown. After intelligence leaks by former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden, however, the NSA's domestic dragnet is finally getting the attention that many people feel it deserves.

Germany on Thursday passed a controversial new law that expands the power of authorities to spy on the content of encrypted message services such as WhatsApp and Skype. Amid the wave of jihadist attacks in Europe, German lawmakers voted in favor of the law designed “to reinforce the effectiveness of criminal procedures”. German investigators will now be able to insert into users’ cellphones and computers spy software (or a “Trojan horse”) to access data in encrypted message services such as popular applications WhatsApp and Skype, including as part of criminal investigations. Up to now, such surveillance tools were not authorized...

Sat down today to watch my first live briefing of Sean Spicer with media. Very surprised and pleased to see him take live questions via SKYPE with local reporters. One from Cincinnati, one from Texas, one from Virginia.... so far. Great idea. Goes beyond the sleazy Beltway fake news outlets.... and gives way for more specific questions about what "flyover" country cares about. Big Media losing again.

Mac and Windows (and Linux) Skype users given until March 1st to modernise themselves Microsoft's hurrying desktop Skype users to new client software. As revealed in a post late last week, Redmond's new plan will mean that come March 1st, users of “Skype for Windows desktop (7.16 and below) or Skype for Mac (7.0 to 7.18) will no longer be able to sign in.” To avoid that conversational crimp, you need merely update your Skype client before the due date. The change is necessary, Microsoft says, because the clients mentioned above were built for ye olde ſkype and its peer-to-peer...

Microsoft Japan, in conjunction with cosmetics supplier Shiseido, has developed TeleBeauty, an app that applies virtual makeup—with styles ranging from “cool” to “trendy”—over a face. TeleBeauty uses the laptop’s camera to superimpose the makeup scheme as the woman (or a man, though the app seems aimed at women) conducts a Skype for Business call. ... Shiseido encourages women to explore the app’s settings: “Go natural, for everyday meetings”, or “bold, to get undivided attention,” or even “trendy, to pitch a new idea.” To the untrained eye, it’s not quite clear where the app actually applies the virtual makeup, however.

NEW YORK (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama will mark International Day of the Girl on Oct. 11 by Skyping with girls around the world about education challenges in their lives. The event is sponsored by Glamour magazine's The Girl Project, which offers education help to more than 50 million girls worldwide.

Thrashing out the details of their new marriage contract with online relationship coach Suzie Johnson, the wealthy couple who have been wed for 12 years leave their hourlong Skype session feeling satisfied. The husband agrees they can have a fifth child — while the wife consents to an infidelity clause allowing him to cheat with other women on a strictly annual basis. “They agreed to a weekend amnesty, where the guy can do what he wants for just one weekend a year,” recalls Johnson, who runs the Dallas, Texas-based goasksuzie.com. “In return, she gets the bigger family she craved.”

Microsoft will remove Managed Accounts from the standalone Skype communications application from March 30 this year and replace them with standard personal accounts. Skype Managed Accounts is a feature that allows a central administrator to create and maintain accounts for the program. It is aimed at business users, and part of the web-based Skype Manager administration utility. But Managed Accounts will soon be transitioned into standard personal Skype accounts, subject to Microsoft's consumer terms of use, the company said. Allocated Skype credits, subscriptions and numbers will be moved to the personal accounts. Administrators will need to ensure that a valid...

Mohammed Assaf, the Gazan winner of 2013's Arab Idol contest, was answering questions from fans in a Skype phone-in this week when he received a comment from an Israeli caller who said: "You should come to Israel...you have Israeli blood," the fan said. Assaf replied, "I spit on you and Israel" before going on to answer other fans' questions. It is not clear if the fan was a Jew or an Arab. "I don't want to talk about this issue too much," Assaf told The New Arab afterward. "The person who said that wanted to provoke me and it's known...

An unknown number of frustrated Skype customers have been pestered by spoof messages on the Microsoft service for weeks, but the company is yet to close what appears to be a gaping hole in its software.Instead, Redmond has advised Skype users to change their account passwords. But complaints are building up about the lack of communication coming out of the Microsoft camp regarding what seems to be a Skype security flaw.The problem first appeared late last month. One Skype user, posting in a thread that now runs to 22 pages long, said: I received a message earlier today from a...

Lync to be retired. Microsoft's April update for Office 2013 is more than just a Patch Tuesday: for some users, it includes the new Skype for Business. A relatively low-key announcement from Microsoft today signals the beginning of the end for Lync, the Office collaboration tool that has run in parallel with Skype in the three years since Microsoft bought Skype. Office 365 customers using Lync Online are the first to receive Skype for Business Online in a rollout that will continue through into May. Skype for Business is also now available as a standalone plan.

In any case, Skype's Translator and its rivals have some way to go before they can match the abilities of a skilled human linguist. You would not want them involved in vital negotiations between world leaders for example. But over the next decade, you can expect to chat to friends whose language you don't share without stopping to flick through a dictionary.

Skype hopes to make its international connections easier — though perhaps still a little awkward — with a new feature that automatically translates conversations almost in real time.Parent company Microsoft unveiled the new technology at the Code technology conference on Tuesday, where Skype vice president Gurdeep Pall made small talk in English with a German-speaking Skype manager in Europe.After saying a sentence in English, an automated voice translated his words into German. (You can watch the video here.)It’s not quite the real-time universal translator that characters on “Star Trek” used to speak to alien life forms. And inevitably for a technology...