The Verge | Microsoft and Walmart are teaming up for a strategic partnership that will take on rival Amazon in both technology and retail. Walmart is announcing today, at Microsoft’s Inspire partner conference, that it’s partnering with Microsoft to use the company’s cloud services. The five-year agreement will see Walmart use Azure and Microsoft 365 across the company, alongside new projects focused on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data platforms.

Quartz | "Amazon’s annual summer sale, Prime Day, was supposed to begin at 3pm US Eastern time yesterday, July 16. But for most users logging onto Amazon.com or the company’s mobile site, they were greeted with dogs, not deals. Amazon’s website seems to be stalling under the strain of what is likely a massive increase in visitors looking to score something on sale. Amazon should probably call its cloud-services provider to complain. Oh wait," writes Mike Murphy. @sfiegerman tweeted, "Bad news: Amazon seems to be crashing from demand for Prime Day sales. Good news: Amazon's error page is amazing."

Ars Technica | Coming over the summer, Microsoft is going to add integrated call recording (something that previously required third-party applications and a deprecated API), read receipts to show when a message recipient has read a message, and end-to-end encryption of text and audio chat using the Signal protocol. There is, however, a price to pay for this: the traditional Win32 Skype client is being end-of-lifed and will not be supported beyond the end of August this year. Users of the Win32 client will have to upgrade to Skype 8.0 (the desktop version of the new unified app) in order to be able to continue to use the network.

CIO Journal (WSJ) | More companies are shifting “mission-critical” apps into multiple cloud services, even as they struggle with integration issues, costs and the security of data passing from one platform to another, Forrester reports. (Subscription required to read.)

TNW | Chrome extensions are small plugin apps that reside within your browser. Therefore, they could potentially have full access to all your data in your browser, such as the websites you visit, the content of these websites, what you enter in forms (e.g. passwords), and more. Here are some great tips on what you should check before installing a Chrome extension.

How-To Geek | Many websites send security codes to your phone number to confirm your identity when signing in. You may use apps that generate security codes on your phone, too. But what happens if you lose your phone?

diginomica | Imposter syndrome; a lack of helpful role models; female students discouraged from tech subjects; unconscious bias: these are all common themes that recur during discussions around diversity and gender in technology. At the recent Women of Silicon Roundabout event, Nicola Marie Beste, Senior Director Projects & Programs at adidas, presented some practical ways women working in IT can overcome these challenges. Beste has encountered plenty of the above during her 20 years working in IT. Here are her top tips for surviving and thriving in IT.

The Hollywood Reporter | For more than a year, some of the most powerful women in entertainment — including Amy Pascal, Kathleen Kennedy, Stacey Snider and a 'Homeland' director — have been impersonated by a cunning thief who targets insiders with promises of work, then bilks them out of thousands of dollars. The Hollywood Reporter has obtained exclusive audio recordings of the savvy imposter as victims come forward and a global investigation heats up. Investigators say there's an important element of social engineering going on with these victims — they know everything about their victims' personal lives and use the necessary pressure points.

DocuSign Blog | DocuSign is excited to announce scanning as a new feature for mobile users. Scan a physical document with your mobile device camera, then easily use it as an electronic document to sign and send.

Atlassian Blog | Atlassian is excited to introduce a fresh, new look for Jira Service Desk Server and Data Center. Their new look is based on the Atlassian design language and includes updated colors, typography, and icons. Now project archiving is also available for Jira Service Desk Data Center customers, so you can free up more space and unlock resources for data that’s still relevant, making Jira more performant and readable.