Latest Technology News

Earlier today, Samsung unveiled the newest member of its Galaxy S family of Android-based smartphones, the Galaxy S III, at London's Earl's Court Exhibition Center at a press event dubbed "Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012". Was it the disappointment that some people predicted? Hell, no! Not to me, at least. And I am going to tell you why.

Right up to today's launch event, there were many rumors/predictions saying that we would see a device with a 4.6 - 4.8 inch Super AMOLED screen, Samsung's new quad-core processor (Exynos 4420) running at 1.4 GHz, 1GB of RAM, and 4G connectivity (at least in markets that currently support it). All of these predictions came true. But there's more -- five things that set Galaxy S III apart from other Samsung smartphones and those from competitors.

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Leading Android smartphone maker Samsung on Thursday announced the latest installment in its two-year old line of Galaxy S smartphones, the Galaxy S III.

Here are the specs, straight from Samsung:

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About 13 million Facebook users in the United States either do not use or do not know about the social network's privacy controls, sharing private information they would not have otherwise. This amounts to one out of every 10 users in the country.

Consumer Reports' study of what we are posting on Facebook should give pause to chronic oversharers. For example, 4.8 million posted publicly where they were going for a day, possibly tipping off a burglar to an empty house; 4.7 million liked a page on a specific health condition or treatment for a disease, which may pique the interest of a prying health insurer.

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In a blog post on Wednesday, President of Microsoft's Windows division Steven Sinofsky announced the seven-year old Windows Live brand is being retired.

Do not be mistaken, there are more than 500 million users of the various Microsoft services that fall under the general classification of Windows Live. They are alive and well.

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Yesterday, colleague Ed Oswald gave four very good reasons why Target is dumping Amazon ereaders and tablets. For Kindle Fire, perhaps there is another: It's not selling. Today, IDC reports that Amazon tablet shipments collapsed during first quarter, all while iPad lapped them up.

"Apple reasserted its dominance in the market this quarter, driving huge shipment totals at a time when all but a few Android vendors saw their numbers drop precipitously after posting big gains during the holiday buying season" said Tom Mainelli, IDC research director. Apple's media tablet share rose to 68 percent from 54.7 percent during fourth quarter. Kindle Fire's shipments collapsed -- from 4.7 million to around 700,000 quarter on quarter. Amazon's share dropped from 16.8 percent to 4 percent, placing it third to Samsung.

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The PDF format is commonly used to deliver documents online, and people increasingly discover that there is no need to use a bloated piece of software such as Adobe Reader to open them. Foxit Reader is one lighter weight alternative that prides itself not only on the speed and performance it offers, but also the security features. The Read Out Loud feature has been updated with a new Read from Current Page option as well.

Foxit Reader 5.3 adds support for viewing RMS-protected PDF that have dynamic watermarks, and there are also a number of other changes, improvements and additions in this latest release. When the program is used to view a document that is too large to print on regular-sized paper, you can now take advantage of the new Tile Large Pages option in the print dialog that makes it possible to split such large pages over several pieces of paper in the style of a poster.

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While we wait for Samsung to unveil its new smartphone in a few hours, for your waiting pleasure I've got answers to the question posed last week: "Would you pay Google $399 for unlocked, HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus?" The search and information giant ended April with a May flower: Direct sales of its flagship, Android 4.0 smartphone, presumably because AT&T and T-Mobile aren't doing so.

Google's got a good thing going here for Android enthusiasts, but I've got a problem with the direct sales thing. What Apple offers that its rival can't: Service. People buying iPhone can get defective replacement at local Apple stores. They also can purchase, granted for an extra 99 bucks, AppleCare+, which extends the basic warranty and provides discounted replacements. If you drop and break iPhone 4S, Apple will replace it for $49, up to two times. What's Google going to do for you, if Galaxy Nexus goes bust or you bust it up?

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Check Point Software Technologies has released ZoneAlarm Free AntiVirus + Firewall, the company’s first attempt to make major inroads into the free security suite market.

The core package is exactly what its name suggests: ZoneAlarm’s free firewall, plus a basic antivirus engine licensed from Kaspersky. But there’s also a strong antiphishing module, basic identity theft protection, and 5GB of online backup space available if you need it.

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Working with multiple monitors is a great way to improve productivity, but it is a completely different way of working that can take a little getting used to. DisplayFusion is a utility that makes it easier to work with multi-display setups, and version 4.0 of the app includes a raft of new feature that will help you to get even more from your monitors, starting off with support for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

As standard Windows will only display the taskbar on one monitor, but it can be added to all of them with DisplayFusion. Any program that is shown on a particular screen will have a taskbar button on the corresponding screen and in the latest version of the program, Jump Lists are now available. There is also newly added support for icon profiles that can be used to quickly re-arrange desktop icon according to what you are doing.

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Amazon has released a desktop app for Windows and Mac users wishing to access its cloud-based storage service. Amazon Cloud Drive 0.3.28 provides basic upload and download functionality for Amazon account holders to access the 5GB of free online storage space the retailer provides.

The desktop app is a late addition to Amazon’s free cloud-based storage service, which launched last year to all Amazon account holders. The 5GB is provided free, along with additional unlimited storage for all MP3s purchased through Amazon.com.

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Playbook, like so much about Research in Motion these days, is a crisis of faith. Do you believe RIM will finally get it right, or move away from BlackBerry?  Months ago when the Playbook 2.0 update hit and leaks finally outed the keyboard/case thing and Blackberry London hardware, I believed in the tablet, BlackBerry 10 and RIM having a future. Or at least one last chance.

This week's BlackBerry World 2012 has renewed my confidence in RIM, and I would even say that they now have a very good chance to bounce back.

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Fifth in a series. When I was growing up in Ohio, ours was the only house in the neighborhood with a laboratory. In it the previous owner, Leonard Skeggs, had invented the automated blood analyzer, pretty much creating the present biomedical industry. Unwilling to let such a facility go to waste, I threw myself into research. It was 1961 and I was eight years old.

I was always drawn to user interface design and quickly settled, as Gene Roddenberry did in Star Trek half a decade later, on the idea of controlling computers with voice. Using all the cool crap my father (a natural scrounger) dragged home from who knows where, I decided to base my voice control work on the amplitude modulation optical sound track technology from 16mm film (we had a projector). If I could paint optical tracks to represent commands then all I’d need was some way of analyzing and characterizing those tracks to tell the computer what to do. But the one thing I didn’t have down in the lab in 1961 was a computer.

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Google on Wednesday announced that it has added carrier billing to the entire selection of content (apps, music, movies, and books) in its Google Play marketplace in seven countries. Participating carriers now let subscribers charge their Google Play purchases directly to their monthly phone bill.

The countries and network operators that will offer total carrier billing include:

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That's the question I'm asking after looking over comScore US mobile subscriber data for the three months ending in March. After years of steady, steep declines, Windows Phone subscriber share held steady from February to March, which perhaps not coincidentally is when Nokia Lumia 900 went on sale. Could it be...

comScore measures subscribers 13 years and older. Microsoft mobile share among smartphone subscribers held steady at 3.9 percent month-on-month, the first real stop in drop in years. How mighty is Microsoft's fall? Market share was 19 percent in September 2009, for example. So 3.9 percent is nothing to skinny, but staying there rather than going down is small, but notable improvement.

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Microsoft wonk Tom Warren reports that a new Xbox 360 and Kinect bundle will be offered at $99 with a two-year Xbox Live Gold subcription beginning next week. If this proves true, it will be the first example of a video game console using the mobile phone carrier subsidy model.

According to Warren's sources, the deal will only be available at Microsoft Stores, and it will include the 4 GB Xbox 360 console with a Kinect Sensor. The cost of a two-year Xbox Live Gold subscription is approximately $120.

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