Stories by Blair Hanley Frank

Now Slack search can look for knowledgeable users and channels

How do you find someone in an organization who can answer a burning question? That’s what Slack is trying to answer with an update to its search feature that was released for larger teams on Wednesday.

OK Google, let's get personal

A hotly anticipated upgrade to Google Home will let users train the company’s virtual assistant to recognize different voices and provide personalized responses to each person.

Facebook launches tool for capturing 360 video inside VR

Facebook is giving VR developers the ability to embed 360-degree photo and video capture in their experiences with a new software development kit made available Wednesday.

SnapLogic's AI simplifies enterprise software connections

SnapLogic wants to make it easier for users of its enterprise software integration platform to connect components of their business systems. The company unveiled a new feature on Tuesday that uses machine learning to suggest what users may want to do...

Can the enterprise save Facebook bots?

Facebook’s bumpy introduction of bot capabilities inside its Messenger service may be saved by an unlikely candidate: business users.

Facebook wants you to hang out with your friends in VR

Facebook is making it possible to hang out with your friends in virtual reality using Spaces , a new app the company launched Tuesday for the Oculus Rift. The app will allow people to join a shared, immersive video call, represented by a personalized...

Facebook aims to crush Snapchat with augmented reality

Facebook's efforts to embed camera functionality in all the apps it runs isn’t just a push to crush Snapchat. The company will be using those cameras as a way to create a developer platform for augmented reality, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed Tuesday.

Facebook levels up its identity tools for developers

Facebook’s popular app login tools are getting an update to better serve international users, the company announced Tuesday.

Slack apps can now use drop-down menus

Apps that integrate with Slack can now include drop-down menus in the messages that they post to the service, as part of a push to improve the interactivity of third-party integrations.

Microsoft launches Windows 10 beta program for business users

Business users get access to their own version of the Windows 10 beta program this week.

Google says its AI chips smoke CPUs, GPUs in performance tests

Google released a paper Wednesday detailing the benefits of using its dedicated Tensor Processing Units for machine learning inference, and the results are staggering.

Google's Espresso networking tech takes SD-WAN to internet scale

Google is working to accelerate the performance of its applications over the internet by building out a software-defined network at broad scale. On Tuesday, the company announced Espresso, a system that provides increased network performance to users...

Microsoft delays tools for third-party Cortana integrations

Microsoft has delayed the release of its tools for connecting other services to the Cortana virtual assistant, a decision that could cause it to lose ground in a crowded industry.

Google Hangouts won't disappear for consumers despite enterprise focus

While Google Hangouts is making a shift to serve enterprise users, it won’t be vanishing for consumers.

AWS follows Google with Reserved Instance flexibility changes

Customers who have Reserved Instance contracts with Amazon Web Services will be able to subdivide some of their Linux and Unix virtual machine instances while maintaining their capacity discounts, thanks to pricing changes announced Monday.