Latest Technology News

Facebook's Graph Search is being updated to include more information from the social network. The personalized search engine previously allowed for searching of people, photos, places and interests when it was launched back at the beginning of the year. Now posts from you and your friends as well as status updates can be included in searches allowing you to get even more specific about what you're looking for.

Also included in the update is the ability to search for status updates, photo captions, check-ins and comments. There are various ways in which searches can be used to hone in on the content you're looking for, and natural language searching is the order of the day. Want to see the posts your online contacts have made about Microsoft's latest operating system? Just search for "posts about Windows 8.1 by my friends". Results can be limited by date as well, so you could search for "posts about Nexus 7 from the last month".

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It is no secret that with the introduction of Windows 8.1, SkyDrive, the Microsoft cloud-based storage solution, will get much deeper integration. But now the company is detailing a bit more than what had already been gleaned from the RTM, announcing a new Smart Files feature, incorporating Bing with it.

Smart Files has been merged into SkyDrive in version 8.1 of Windows, but the company has revealed more details about how it will work and what customers can expect.

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When I attended the Surface 2 event in New York City, I came away impressed with the new tablet. Its versatility and improved battery performance make the Windows RT device quite intriguing. While I like the Surface 2, it was the Blades that really impressed me -- I like the way that they could focus an experience on a particular task. Today, Microsoft announces that Delta Airlines is buying 11,000 Surface 2 tablets.

While the airline is not leveraging customized Blades, it has still found great value in Surface and the Windows RT platform. Microsoft says that Delta "is equipping its 11,000 pilots with electronic flight bags using the Microsoft Surface 2 tablet. Device rollout to pilots flying the Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 fleets will start later this year and all Delta cockpits are projected to be paperless by the end of 2014". It seems Delta is a fan of Windows as the company is also equipping its flight attendants with Windows Phone.

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It's extremely irritating. You change your Facebook status and immediately notice that you've made a stupid spelling mistake. This could come as a result of a slip of the finger, or your phone's autocorrect might be to blame. You could, of course, simply delete the status update and recreate it without errors. But what about if you've already managed to amass dozens of comments that you don’t want to lose?

Now there's no need to fret because Facebook has made it possible to make edits to statuses. At least this is the case if you're using the Android app or the website -- iOS app users will have to wait a little longer for an update. This is great news! No more stupid typos! No more statuses that sound like they were written by someone with their eyes closed after an evening of heavy drinking! Or is it such great news?

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Today, third quarter ends, and in about three weeks Apple will reveal during its earnings call smartphone shipments. The data is a lens for truly assessing what iPhone 5s and 5c sales could be during the holidays. Already, complaints are loud and obnoxious across the InterWeb that the fruit-logo company offers little true innovation in either device -- that the magic is gone. I disagree. CEO Tim Cook is smarter than many critics think.

The smartphone market in late 2013 resembles portable music players seven years ago: Rapidly saturating, particularly in mature markets like Europe and the United States and among wealthier purchasers in countries like China, India and Russia. This release is very much about preserving and extending the Apple brand in a slowing sales segment, while preparing for what comes next. That's absolutely the right approach.

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Google TV started slowly, with a less than stellar launch thanks to the overpriced and barely functional Logitech Revue. Since then, the platform has managed to slowly get off the ground, though still not living up to its full potential. Better pricing and improved functionality has raised expectations, however, giving cause for hope among the faithful.

The platform is already solid enough to power a living room's entertainment with no problem, as I have been doing since earlier this year when my HTPC simply became too old and slow to handle the task any longer. But questions lingered when I made this shift -- how would I access my stored media? What about the web?

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Information security specialist Symantec has announced on its Security Response blog that it has taken the first steps towards combating the ZeroAccess botnet. The company has "sinkholed" more than half a million bots -- making a serious dent in the number of bots under attacker control. Symantec is actively working with ISPs and CERTs (Computer Emergency Readiness Teams) worldwide to help get infected machines cleaned up.

ZeroAccess has a highly technical and sophisticated infrastructure. It uses a peer-to-peer architecture giving the botnet a high degree of redundancy with no central command and control server. It also uses various advanced methods to survive on infected machines. It uses click-fraud and Bitcoin mining to carry out two revenue generating activities potentially earning millions of dollars a year.

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I have been using Linux for many years. I consider myself well-versed in the open-source kernel and its associated operating systems. When I first started using Linux distributions, the community dreamed of a day when it would become the dominant force in computing.

Well, arguably, the time is now. You see, Android is now the most popular mobile operating system and ChromeOS is making big strides in education -- both operating systems use the Linux kernel. Also, Unix-like operating systems power 66 percent of the web (47 percent of which is Linux). However, Linux is not perfect and is still trailing on the desktop to Microsoft. Below are what I view as the top five problems with Linux.

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If you are a Windows Phone and/or Windows 8/RT user who loves RSS feed reader apps then I am sure the name Nextgen Reader rings a bell. It is one of the best-rated and most popular pieces of software currently available on Microsoft's latest consumer operating systems, and probably one of the best built mobile apps that smartphone and tablet users can get today.

To learn more about Nextgen Reader and Windows Phone and Windows 8/RT development, I chatted with the person responsible for all the code behind the app, Gaurav Kalra. The man, alongside his brother Sorabh, is the co-founder of Next Matters, the company that develops Nextgen Reader.

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If you need to bring extra life to a photo then you’ll probably start by applying a few conventional adjustments and effects. Play around with the contrast, maybe adjust the colors, add a lens flare, whatever it might be.

Reflet (from the creator of PhotoFiltre) takes a more drastic approach, animating your image with a rippling reflection effect. It’s not exactly subtle -- we’re reminded of those taste-free 1990′s home pages, packed with animated GIFs -- but can work well in some cases, and only takes a moment to try.

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Digital business incompetence will cause a quarter of firms to lose competitive ranking by 2017, according to research group Gartner. The results of a survey of 151 business decision makers in the second quarter of 2013 show that 90 percent of respondents think that competition for talent will contribute to digital success or failure.

"The next decade will move beyond the notion of using technology to automate businesses and toward positioning technology as revenue builder, market maker and customer finder," says Diane Morello, managing vice president at Gartner. "When companies have those targets in mind, digital business becomes real. The impact of digital business will be undeniable: It will introduce new business models, cause industries to be 'digitally remastered' and change the way that businesses put great minds to work".

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We asked and Microsoft delivered. The removal of the Start button from Windows 8 was seen by many as a huge mistake on Microsoft's part. We've known for some time that this familiar component of the operating system is to make a comeback, and now Microsoft is showing it off in a new commercial. The latest ads also highlight the ease of switching between desktop and Modern UI modes and the unified experience Microsoft is looking to create across devices.

More than the absence of the Start button perhaps, being thrown in to Modern UI (or Metro as it was at the time) was something that put a lot of people off Windows 8. In the "Windows 8.1 Everywhere" ad, Microsoft tries to get across the idea of choice. Now rather than being a portal to your apps, the Start button is described as the means by which users switch between modes.

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Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 makes big claims about its malware-blocking technology. But how would the suite perform in real life? We decided to find out.

Installation proved straightforward enough, if a little slow; the suite doesn’t exactly leap into action. We liked the fact that it doesn’t demand you remove any competing products, though -- that’s a decision which really needs to be left up to the user -- and after waiting for a minute or two, setup was complete and the program finally appeared.

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My friend Paul Tyma (ex-Google, creator of Mailinator, occasional stand-up comic) released a mobile product this week and one thing I find interesting is the difference between how he describes it and how I describe it.

Paul: "Let’s say you had an important meeting with someone you really want to impress. A smart person would probably spend a non-trivial amount of time scouring the Internet for information about that person. What are they tweeting about? If you’re LinkedIn to them, then go check out their LinkedIn profile. If you were really interested you might go look up their house on Zillow. Or see how their company’s stock price faired today on Yahoo Finance".

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Facebook wants to show you more relevant ads. Advertisements are the price we pay for free online content and services, and there are no signs of it vanishing any time soon. Even though this is something internet users have accepted for some time, there are often complaints about the unsuitability of ads. Far fewer people have a problem with seeing adverts for products and services they might genuinely be interested in than those that have no relevance to their lives.

In a blog post Engineering Manager for News Feed Ads, Hong Ge explains that Facebook would like to ensure that the ads that make it into your timeline are more relevant. If you're anything like me, you've probably built up something of a mental filter for "pointless" ads, and maybe even those that might be of interest, but Facebook is keen that you see more ads and that you respond to them positively.

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