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Pokemon Go’s plans to make 3D scans of the world

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In 2016 we saw the world go crazy for Pokemon Go. The game sent hundreds of millions of people of all ages wandering the streets searching for virtual creatures. This game has paved the way for augmented reality in today’s technological landscape, and the ability to overlay computer-generated imagery onto real-world environments. Niantic (developers of Pokemon Go) are leading the way in advancing augmented reality technology, especially in their new proposed update.

Niantic plans to encourage users to create and upload 3D scans of real-world locations while they play Pokemon Go. With the incentive of unlocking “new kinds of planet-scale AR experiences”, avid Pokemon players will be helping develop the future of AR gameplay.

The Future of Augmented Reality

Given Niantic’s success, Big Tech companies are now in an arms race to see who can develop and execute this technology the fastest. Businesses such as Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google are currently developing similar AR products. By using simultaneous localisation and mapping technology (SLAM), the companies can regularly scan and collect data about a user’s environment.

We consume new technologies very quickly, so it is easy to imagine a world where augmented reality is integrated into our everyday lives. However, there are growing concerns about pervasive augmented reality being used by big companies to create more targeted advertising. Other organisations have warned against these new technology developments with concerns over the potential influence on surveillance and control.

Using augmented reality in the classroom

It can be tempting to ignore this technology, given the potential threats or concerns on how it can be used for ‘evil’. However, there are many benefits and positives in using augmented reality into today’s educational setting.

While the new 3D scanning feature is yet to be implemented, the current game provides opportunities to build lesson plans around the game now. For example, in an English lesson, you may have primary students write a fact file on a certain pokemon. A Maths lesson may involve high school students measuring the distance travelled, defining speed, the area covered and so forth. There are numerous lesson plans relating to the app in computing, design technology, art, geography and PE classes.

For more inspiration on how you can create fun and engaging lessons using the latest technology check out our blog on the newest education tools.

To learn about more opportunities to integrate technology into the classroom, or if you are wanting to upskill your teachers to effectively use new tools in lesson plans, contact our friendly eStorm team at any time on 1300 378 676 or [email protected].

Is my business fit for managed cloud services?

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The “Cloud” is a new and disruptive trend that has been gaining momentum in businesses for some time. With many businesses unsure how cloud computing and cloud services can fit into their business strategy. Managed Cloud Services may sound like a complex concept; however, it is simply storing your data offsite in a data centre or a private cloud.

Benefits of the Cloud

Businesses who make the shift to cloud software often do so for many different reasons. The most common include flexibility, scalability, cost savings, as well as the uses of cloud services such as data backups, disaster recovery, and so forth.

Managed cloud services are not limited to small businesses or start-ups, and are beneficial for companies of all sizes. Many businesses will often associate managed IT services as unaffordable and unnecessary. However, managed cloud services are affordable, easy to deploy and simple for businesses to manage.

Evaluating your business needs

Before obtaining managed cloud services, you need to evaluate your business from a strategic and operational perspective. Does your IT demand fluctuate throughout the year? Do your IT costs negatively impact on your ability to grow your business? If your answer is yes, making the move to managed cloud services may be in your best interest.

Businesses will typically choose a cloud service from three distinct types of models: private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud. Unlike a public cloud, private and hybrid clouds require businesses to maintain, manage and update their data centres through dedicated administrators. Often the cost and ability to execute these tasks are not in the best interests of the business; this is where managed cloud service providers step in.

What cloud service is best for you?

Each business is unique, their size, business objectives, industry and IT software; therefore, every business deserves a customised service. With a variety of cloud packages available, you can choose which services and features are best for you, your budget and strategic needs.

Co-location providers

Co-location services provide businesses with an opportunity to install their own servers in a managed facility. The location provider then has the responsibility of keeping the servers on and maintained. However, the responsibility of physically maintaining the servers rests with the owner of the server (i.e. the business).

The next step up – Managed Co-location

Providers have begun to offer managed co-location services, where businesses can buy a server from the provider, who then oversee the installation and ongoing management. Using this framework allows businesses to reduce operational overheads as well as take advantage of the increased resilience of off-site systems.

Experience more freedom – Managed Apps and IaaS

The next service in the managed cloud includes full hosted and managed applications in the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. This also includes large platforms such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, allowing businesses to move key applications to the Cloud.

The support, management and maintenance of their cloud infrastructure is the responsibility of the service provider; everything else is left to the business to handle.

The Saving Grace of Cloud Services – Fully Managed Cloud

Fully managed cloud services allow you to hand over the management and stress of the entire platform, as well as all of its parts to a third party (that’s us!). Here at eStorm, we take the time to understand your business’ IT needs and identify and deploy new services that help you reach your goals.

Why we recommend Managed Cloud Services

Including managed cloud services into your business strategy, your business will experience the following benefits:

Cost Saving

Managed cloud services can help you control and reduce your costly IT maintenance costs. Maintaining an in-house IT department is expensive and is often unnecessary for businesses with simple networks. Making the switch to a managed cloud service provider means you decide how much you are willing to pay for IT services and have a consistent monthly bill.

Future-proofed technology

Migrating your data to a secure cloud is the first step in setting up your business for success in the future. The friendly technicians at eStorm are always prepared with the newest technology. We are by your side when new technology comes on the market, or a required update is released, supporting you every step of the way.

Custom and integrated service

At eStorm, we understand each business is unique and requires a custom cloud solution for a seamless transition and minimal downtime. To accommodate this, we offer a variety of services to unlock your business potential, including, private and hybrid cloud, Microsoft Office 365, Sharepoint, Amazon Web Services and many more. View our full list of services, here.

If you are unsure if your business is ready to make the transition to the Cloud, book an appointment with the friendly team at eStorm Australia today.

Is your business ready for the Essential Eight?

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At the beginning of 2020, the Federal Government and the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) announced the Essential Eight (E8). The E8 is a strategy for businesses to mitigate cybersecurity incidents, protecting their systems against a range of adversaries.

What is the “Essential Eight”?

The ACSC has admitted that no single mitigation strategy guarantees total prevention of cybersecurity incidents. However, they encourage organisations to implement the eight essential strategies as a baseline. These mitigation strategies are also deemed cost-effective with regards to time, money and effort when compared to the resources needed to respond to large-scale cybersecurity incidents.

  • The E8 strategies are categorised into three groups:
  • Strategies to Prevent Malware Delivery and Execution,
  • Mitigating the Extent of Cyber Security Incidents, and
  • Recovering Data and Maintaining System Availability.

For more information on these strategies visit the Australian Cyber Security Centre.

How will the Essential Eight affect your business?

These new strategies are now a benchmark for any business or organisation who is required or aspires to work with the Government, Health or other contracts containing sensitive data. Whether your business is compliant with these strategies or is not is now a big factor when it comes to Government tenders, contract pitches and so forth. It is also likely that other big corporations dealing with data will also require their business partners to be compliant with the E8 before starting any work.

Complying with the Essential Eight

As a business owner or IT professional, your first task will be running an IT security audit and comparing your current system to the strategies outlined by the Government. From here, you will be able to identify your weaknesses and gaps in security. Your business can begin implementing the eight strategies anytime, and suggested approaches from the Australian Cyber Security Centre are available.

How eStorm can help

You do not need to handle or manage this change on your own. Our team understands auditing your current system and updating your strategies to suit the new benchmarks is not an easy task. Our friendly IT support team is here to help your business obtain a high-security standard, going beyond the E8 strategies.

Currently, the E8 strategies are heavily based on Windows-based systems. However, our team covers this and more to ensure your business’ IT is secure. Our broad services include Mac Controls, Perimeter Security (Firewalls and Universal Threat Management), and breach mitigation (honeypots and intrusion detection systems).

If you have questions regarding how the Essential Eight will impact your business or how to maintain high-security standards, the eStorm is here to help. Contact us today!

 

An update on our Apple Education Solution Partnership

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Here at eStorm, we have been working closely with Apple to provide the best solutions for our education partners. Recently, Apple refined the criteria to become an Apple Education Solution Specialist. We are excited to announce that we have continued to qualify as specialists in this field.

Why do we partner with Apple?

For over 40 years, Apple has been assisting educators to unlock student’s creative potential. Not only does Apple achieve this through powerful technology, but tools and curriculum that inspires and engages students. There is something unique about taking a device out of a box, plugging it in and being able to start using it straight away.

The Apple Education Solution Specialist criteria requires us to demonstrate an ability to assist schools from the inception of their Apple device initiative, all the way through to roll out. This also includes supporting IT departments and teachers, as well as school management along the way.

As an Apple Education Partner, we have been recognised for our work with educational institutions to provide tailored solutions for students and schools across Australia.

Specialised For You

Our team undertakes continual training to ensure our macOS and iOS technology knowledge is up-to-date. Under the Device Enrolment Program, we have access to tools to assist your school in implementing automate device enrolment through Apple School Manager. Such tools allow us to:
Assist Schools to automate device enrolment with Apple School Enrolment,
Manage student and staff devices with Mobile Device Management, and
Deploy devices to staff and students complete with Apple education tools such as Classroom and Classwork.

Understanding Your Needs

After working closely with schools in the past, we now understand that the needs of the schools are beyond just the device. We know the key to developing great programs is liaising closely with the leadership team, teachers and the community. To create a positive impact on teaching and learning, the eStorm team provides professional learning opportunities to incorporate content into the classroom. These include Apple Teacher, Everyone Can Code and Everyone Can Create.

Apple Authorised Service Provider Bonus

As an Authorised Service Provider, we can connect your school with the right devices that best enables your students to achieve their academic goals. By partnering with eStorm, we can offer education discounts for:

  • Faculty or staff members of public and private higher education institutions in Australia
  • Employees of public or private K–12 institutions in Australia
  • School board members who are currently serving as elected or appointed members in Australia
  • Parents and citizens/friends (P&C/P&F) executives currently serving as elected or appointed members in Australia
  • Qualifying homeschools in Australia
  • Employees of a public or private, profit or non-profit preschool in Australia.

Find out more about how partnering with eStorm as Apple Solution Experts can benefit your school today.

 

3 Cyber Security Tips When Working Remote

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Remote working can be a blessing. More time spent with the family, less time commuting and sitting through meetings from the comfort of your own home. But as companies across Australia continue to offer flexible work environments to prevent the spread to COVID-19, it is important to understand the security and privacy risks that both the business and employees may encounter.

Employees who are usually protected by corporate networks are working from much less secure locations, and cybercriminals have used COVID-19 as an opportunity. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASCS) has seen a significant increase in Australians being targeted with COVID-19 related scams, and advised everyone to stay aware and up-to-date. To help you get started, here are three things you could do to protect both your employees and the business.

Implement multi-factor authentication

According to the Australian Government, multi-factor authentication (MFA) is considered to be one of the most effective controls you can implement to prevent unauthorised access to computers, applications and online services. Using multiple layers of authentication makes it much more challenging to access your systems.

Multi-factor authentication can use a combination of:

  • Something the user knows, whether it be a passphrase, PIN or an answer to a secret question
  • Something the user physically possesses such as a card, token or a security key
  • Something the user inherently possesses such as a fingerprint or retina pattern.
Update your software & operating systems

Often software updates for operating systems and applications are developed to address security issues. Updates often include new security features that protect your data and device. Quite often cybercriminals take advantage of software vulnerabilities in common applications like operating systems and browsers.

Here are some best practices when it comes to software and operating system updates:

  • Stay current: software vendors release updates regularly and many of them relate to important security issues. Appoint someone to be in charge of staying on top of these updates.
  • Keep up with regular maintenance tasks: appoint someone to be in charge of keeping software licenses up to date and keeping software current.
  • Automate what you can: this will lessen the burden in the long run.
  • Back up everything: if you experience any crashes while updating you’ll be glad you did.
Outsource a Managed IT Service Provider (MSP)… like us!

Managed IT Services are a subscription-based outsourcing of IT systems management for businesses, which also includes the management of other IT processes and functions intended to improve business operations and reduce costs.

The goal of managed IT services is to help your business run more effectively by transferring the burden of managing and maintaining your IT software, hardware and environment to us—the managed IT service provider. As your IT managed service provider we then maintain responsibility for the day-to-day maintenance, upkeep and functionality of your IT service, equipment and overall infrastructure, as well as any short or long-term IT strategy and expansion.

Partnering with an MSP offers many benefits to your business. Some of these include:

  • Minimised downtime and cost reductions: with 24/7 proactive monitoring of your IT systems, we’re able to identify and address any issues before they cause damage, interruptions to your business or financial loss.
  • Security: with over 43% of cyber attacks targeting small to medium businesses, it’s vital vulnerability assessments, threat management and secure user access and verification become a commonplace for your business. We’re always working with leading technology vendors and testing the latest world-class technology, tools, systems and security to deliver the best and safest IT solutions.
  • Peace of mind knowing that no matter where you are or what issue arises, you have skilled professional IT experts in your corner who are prepared and ready to help you.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses continue to adapt to the fast-changing environment and develop strategies to protect their business and staff from cyber attacks. Here at eStorm, we encourage Australians to remain vigilant and to review your current strategies to ensure you incorporate cyber security measures.

If you’d like to learn more about outsourcing your IT or Managed Services, or have questions about Network Security, get in touch today by emailing [email protected] or calling (07) 3120 0640.

Office 365 supports your business to work remote

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In these ever-changing times, the ability for an organisation to adapt and change is what will allow you to stand out from competitors, continue to serve customers, and ensure you maintain momentum. With the current COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing more and more businesses prepare for social distancing by setting up their systems to allow for remote work and collaboration. At eStorm, we’ve been supporting our customers to ensure they are set-up and using Office 365 to its full potential.

Whether working on a PC, Mac or mobile device from home or in the office, Office 365 is providing workplaces with the tools to continue driving efficiency and productivity. Here are just a few ways Office 365 can support your business in working remotely:

Real-time collaboration

For businesses to continue operating and supporting customers, collaboration on projects and tasks needs to continue. Office 365 provides multiple tools to ensure collaboration doesn’t stop when teams are working remotely. The Microsoft Office suite most of you are used to gives you the ability to have more than one person working on a Word document or Excel file at the same time, and be able to see each other’s work — great for collaboration.

To take it to the next level, there are also a number of newer tools such as SharePoint, Skype for Business and Teams — all designed to help your organisation achieve its goals and provide greater opportunities for workplaces when working remotely.

Teams

Teams is a Microsoft Office 365 tool that allows you to keep your teams communicating, collaborating and working together no matter what location they’re in! The Teams tool is used by businesses to support teams of all sizes, from small teams of 2-5, to large teams of 20-30, even to bigger groups of 100+. No matter the size of your team, Teams provides a great option for organising projects and getting the right people together to have conversations and meetings.

Teams also works as a way of recording and tracking conversations, and offers an easy format for online meetings and chat sessions. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen more and more businesses take advantage of Teams to ensure they are delivering projects, communicating in a timely manner and continuing to achieve their organisation’s goals.

Microsoft is currently offering a free version of Teams during the COVID-19 pandemic — learn more about the free version and speak to us about how we can support you to set-up Teams today.

A simple tip for your employees when using Teams to facilitate group chats while working remote — if you’re somewhere with a distracting background, there is a handy little ‘background blur’ tool to help reduce distraction and keep teammates focused.

Secure Cloud file storage

Office 365 also allows your team to access files from anywhere, in a secure and safe manner. The cloud-based storage, OneDrive, provides global accessibility and real-time collaboration to support your business in working both in-house and remote as needed. It allows for full visibility, control and collaboration for internal and external stakeholders, as you can easily share documents and control who can view and edit each file. 

Microsoft Office 365 also offers enterprise solutions when it comes to ensuring your business’s documents and work stays secure. Its collection of threat-protection technologies helps protect against spam, malware, viruses, phishing attempts, malicious links, and other cyber threats to your business.

Continuation of business

The huge benefit of Office 365 to businesses is that it offers an easy way to continue ‘business as usual’ no matter what challenges may come your way. The tools are there to help your teams collaborate, plan workflows and tasks, and manage projects. With Office 365, your business can continue to meet its goals and deliver services/products to your customers. 

Need help to get your business working remote using Office 365?

At eStorm, we offer Office 365 support and troubleshooting, as well as deliver general IT Managed Services. What does that mean exactly? With a wide range of plans, deployment options and services, our IT experts can get your business set up and working efficiently in no-time. With access to the latest information and deals on offer, our team is here to support you during the COVID-19 pandemic and into the future.