Latest Technology News

“Bigger is always better” is an expression we’ve become accustomed to over the years and while counter-intuitive it best describes everything that’s wrong with Facebook. The most popular social networking website is the best example of size losing over quality. Are we really satisfied with our Internet alter-ego living in the largest environment or the better one?

The American Customer Satisfaction Index has revealed rather interesting user satisfaction results on Facebook and Google+. Satisfaction is the word of the day and Facebook users don’t really get it, which is curious because there are more than 900 million of them. The satisfaction index rating decreased from 66 in 2011 to 61 in 2012. That's out of 100 points. Surely CEO Mark Zuckerberg should be concerned. Why? The sun shines brighter on Google+, which ranks 78 its first time on the index, equal to Wikipedia.

People don’t like Facebook, They like their Friends

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VideoLAN.org has released VLC Media Player 2.0.3, the latest build of its popular open-source media player software for Mac, Windows and Linux. Although a minor refresh, version 2.0.3 contains two notable updates in adding support for Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper, and fixing the QT interface style in Windows 8.

In addition to these updates, version 2.0.3, which is also available as a separate 64-bit build (not updated to 2.0.3 at time of writing), contains a number of minor bug fixes and translation updates.

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Avira has released a first public “technical preview” of Avira Protection Cloud, a simple cloud-based tool for detecting malware.

And we really do mean simple. There are no menus here, no toolbars, no options, settings anything else: all you have to do is launch the program, click “Cloud Scan” and wait for the results.

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The recent release of Firefox 14 FINAL means the whole developmental cycle has moved on again, and as expected versions 15 (Beta), 16 (Aurora) and 17 (Nightly/UX) of Mozilla’s web browser have made their first appearances. Version 14 was a relatively minor release after the excitement of version 13, but versions 15 and 16 both promise some exciting new features as we reveal below.

Get a head’s up on what’s coming and discover which build is best for your personal needs with our updated guide to what the future holds in store for Firefox.

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Google shares rose about 3 percent in after-hours trading today, following a positive second-quarter earnings report that included subsidiary Motorola Mobility. Revenue reached $12.21 billion, up 35 percent year over year. Motorola contributed $1.25 billion revenue on its first listing in a Google earnings report. Without the subsidiary, revenue would have grown 21 percent.

The search and information giant completed the $12.5 billion acquisition in mid May, so Motorola only contributed for about 39 days to second-quarter results.

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Microsoft closed its fiscal year in relatively good shape, despite globally slow PC sales that weighed down Windows division sales and product transition period that affected some others. The Redmond, Wash.-based company has a heap load of new products in queue for the next three quarters, causing some customers to delay purchases.

However, a one-time $6.19 billion impairment goodwill charge, related to the Online Services Business, and $540 million deferral led Microsoft to post a 6 cents-per-share loss -- or $492 million, after taxes. The deferral covers upgrade guarantees related to Windows 8's launch.

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A prominent Senate Democrat sided with Apple this week, and called on the Justice Department to drop its ebook lawsuit against the Cupertino, Calif. company. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote in an opinion piece that appeared in the Wednesday edition of the Wall Street Journal that a victory by the DOJ could be detrimental to the entire publishing industry.

"The suit will restore Amazon to the dominant position atop the e-books market it occupied for years before competition arrived in the form of Apple", Schumer argued. "If that happens, consumers will be forced to accept whatever prices Amazon sets".

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As Nokia reports its earnings, I can’t help but feel bad for the company's efforts here in the United States. To me, 600,000 units in North America (and supposedly that includes other devices besides Lumia 900) is not exactly what I would call a win.

But that’s just me. I’m a Windows Phone user. It’s a fantastic platform. The interface is gorgeous, and the OS is fast. I haven’t had issues with Windows Phone that I have had with Android. So in my opinion, the platform deserves a spot at the table with Android and iOS. So why hasn’t it been very successful?

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If you notice a huge drop in the amount of pharmaceutical spam you're receiving, you're not imagining things. Security researchers say they were able to take down "Grum", the spam server behind about 18 percent of global spam.

The process began when researchers blocked the botnet's command servers in the Netherlands and Panama on Tuesday. Grum's administrators acted quickly to restore the server, and shortly thereafter had set up new command servers in Russia and Ukraine. Researchers were still hot on their trail, and Militpas, Calif.-based security firm FireEye along with UK-based anti-spam group SpamHaus worked with Russian security experts to take down Grum again on Wednesday morning.

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I see an interesting trend among people emailing me to comment about Marissa Mayer: They see her hiring at Yahoo as some kind of trick by Google. Ms. Mayer is Google to the core, readers say, and she’s going to Yahoo simply as a commando to pick and choose future Google acquisitions.

No, she isn’t.

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The Kickstarter website has moved crowd funding into mainstream media. There is virtually no news site, newspaper or TV network left out there that has not reported on recent funding success stories. You may have heard about Double Fine Adventure's million Dollar ride that got the ball rolling for some serious game funding on the site, or Pebble, the e-paper watch for iPhone and Android that managed to rake in more than $10 million.

People who pledge a certain amount of money often get something in return. In the case of Double Fine it is a copy of the adventure game that the developers want to produce with the money, and for Pebble, it is one of those iconic watches. Pledges can be retracted for as long as the funding has not ended. Afterwards, the money is only transferred if the funding has reached the desired goal. If that is not the case, backers are not charged a single dime. It gets fuzzy when a project has crossed the funding goal and reached the end of the funding stage. Once the money has been transferred, there is not really any transparency as to what happens with the money from that moment on forward.

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If you use Google search (and who doesn’t), you may have noticed that sponsored results (pay-per-click, or PPC, ads) have been taking over more and more of the search engine results page.

Here at WordStream, we’ve noticed that too! So we decided to do some research into what impact all of these new, bigger, more prominent and engaging ad formats are having on the average Google searcher. The results are astonishing: Clicks on paid search listings beat out organic clicks by nearly a 2:1 margin for keywords with high commercial intent in the US.

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It’s tough to be in Nokia’s shoes right now, with so many people expecting them to fail. Today, the Finnish phone manufacturer released second-quarter financial results and, despite public expectation, financials aren’t what we might expect. If we're to believe all rumors posted on the Internet the past days about Nokia’s financial state there wouldn’t be a need to read their press release. Reality is different. Phone sales increased quarter on quarter and year on year, with Lumia Windows Phone exceeding predictions.

Let's kick off with the numbers: Nokia’s operating loss amounts to EUR826 million ($1.01 billion). The Finnish manufacturer reduced its operating loss from EUR1.3 billion ($1.6 billion) over the previous quarter, which surpassed predictions of a bigger financial loss. At the end of the quarter they’ve got EUR102 million ($125.5 million) in net cash, far better than the EUR590 million ($724 million) deficit of last quarter. Nokia posted net sales amounting to EUR7.5 billion ($9.2 billion), up EUR0.1 billion ($122 million) from the previous quarter.

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After the furore surrounding Mozilla’s recent announcement that it’s to place its email client, Thunderbird, into an “extended support release”, the launch of Thunderbird 15.0 Beta 1 was always bound to attract attention. And it’s certainly turning heads, thanks to the official debut of a redesigned user interface.

Thunderbird 15 Beta 1 also debuts two noticeable new features in addition to the revamped user interface, extending the global search tool to cover the Chat module, plus implementing the “do not track” feature that debuted in Firefox last year.

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Owners of Android devices who work with both Macs and PCs should take a look at NTFS & HFS+ Beta. This newly unveiled app from software developer Paragon helps to overcome compatibility issues that you may have experiences with your cell or tablets and PC and Mac. Despite the fact that this is an early beta, it is an interesting tool.

If you are an Android owner with a Mac, you may well have formatted a memory card as an HFS+ drive. This is not ordinarily a problem, until the time comes when you want to access the files on a PC. Similarly, if you are a PC users, formatting a drive using NTFS could lead to problem with your Mac.

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