AppleNew Macintosh Hardware

Apple recently released the new Silicon M1 chipset hardware updates for their iMac and MacBook Pro computers, as well as the new Mac OS 11 update called Big Sur. These hardware standards are now available for purchase.

You can view the new configurations on our new purchase recommendations page (requires login with SSO@umsystem.edu username // password).

For assistance in purchasing one of these new devices, please work with our Hardware Procurement Team.

If you need help with your current Apple computer please contact the Technology Support Center.

Office 365Office 365 Updates

Microsoft 365 has many collaboration, communication, and storage features available to support your work.  The University has partnered with Microsoft to offer a series of online, instructor-led training sessions through the month of June specifically covering file storage with OneDrive and open Q&A sessions with Microsoft. 

Learn more about the sessions and reserve your spot by visiting the Upcoming Microsoft 365 Training webpage.  You can also view all the previous session by clicking the “View recordings of earlier session” link at the top right of the training page. 

For more general information about Microsoft 365, please visit the Microsoft 365 Resources webpage.

If you have any questions about Microsoft 365 please contact the Technology Support Center.

computer chipChip Shortages and Hardware Lead Times

Ongoing global chip shortages are impacting the delivery of many items across the globe, everything from cars to computers have been impacted. Currently new computers have up to a 10-week lead time and it is a similar situation for docks and webcams. 

If you need to purchase new computers or equipment for the Fall semester we highly encourage you to place these orders as soon as possible to ensure they arrive in time. 

You can view the new configurations on our new purchase recommendations page (requires login with SSO@umsystem.edu username // password).

For assistance in purchasing any computing equipment, please work with our Hardware Procurement Team.

data sciencedSAIC Update

The NextGen Data Science and Analytics Innovation Center (dSAIC) is based at UMKC and operates in partnership with other UM-System campuses. The goal of the Center is to develop interventions and improve health outcomes for individuals and populations, using factors such as genetics, environment, and lifestyle to improve treatment and patient care. The dSAIC provides data analytics to power the NextGen Precision Health Initiative.

To help support this initiative on the UMKC campus, Information Services has hired Aaron Bruce as a Cloud Engineer to support the dSAIC’s work. Aaron is heavily involved in helping to build and support the technologies that will drive dSAIC success.

Dr. Dainxaing Xu, Professor in the School of Computing and Engineering, is already using dSAIC technology to further his research. “We use the GPU server to conduct research on the prediction of software vulnerabilities via deep learning,” analyzing 30 popular open-source projects and frameworks. He and his team are pre-training models to analyze Java source code to predict code vulnerabilities.