Latest Technology News

Cloud-based desktop software analytics platform Trackerbird completed its beta phase and launched to general availability on Thursday. The platform lets .NET software developers and vendors embed tracking mechanisms in their software to watch installations, trends in feature usage, user behaviour, demographics, and license conversions.

It's similar in concept to Concerity Analytics, which we launched here on BetaNews two years ago. By integrating Trackerbird's SDK into a desktop application, developers can collect anonymized reports and detailed conversion funnel analysis in real time. All software usage metrics collected by Trackerbird are totally anonymous and no IP addresses are stored. Developers can make Trackerbird analytics collection an option that the end user can choose to run.

Continue reading →

Unsurprisingly, 4G LTE is the fastest growing cellular network technology, in part for what it delivers and deployment's timing. Strategy Analytics forecasts that 4G LTE will reach 1 billion connections, or 15 percent of all, by 2017. That compares to 12 years for GSM and about 11 years for WCDMA to reach as many.

But LTE isn't gain without pain. In the United States, Verizon by far and large has the most expansive 4G network, reaching 250 metro areas and 200 million Americans compared to 38 metros and 75 million people for AT&T. Adoption still is fairly low, perhaps because phone subscribers don't understand the value. Meanwhile, Verizon will axe grandfathered unlimited plans when subscribers upgrade to LTE. There's pain for the gain.

Continue reading →

Earthlink this week strengthened its cloud services offerings, debuting a hosted desktop solution that allows customers access regardless of device and via both the Internet and secure MPLS connections. Over 250 applications are supported, and customers may also install their own custom applications.

Since the middle of last year, EarthLink has been transforming its business from an ISP to cloud services provider. In July, the company promoted Brian Fink to executive vice president of managed and cloud services. Fink brought with him two decades of experience in managed services. Since then, the company has continued to make some high profile cloud hires, including the appointment Thursday of former Concentric Cloud president Michael Toplisek to vice president of IT services.

Continue reading →

It’s a strange day when some of the biggest news about the latest release of an application is a feature's removal, but this is the case with the latest version of FeedDemon. Some months ago, Google announced plans to make changes to its Reader service and this has ultimately led to FeedDemon removing the sharing features that relied on this particular service, but Google+ mostly been picks up the slack. The most recent version of FeedDemon also has a number of other changes and additions that are worth mentioning.

The program has long featured a recommendation engine that can point you in the direction of stories, articles and feed that you might well find interesting, and this has been improved to ensure greater relevance.  When you use the built in browser to view web pages, a new Ctrl+0 keyboard shortcut is available that can be used to revert to a 100 percent zoom level. If you have the Pro version of the program – as opposed to the free Lite version – you also have a new newspaper style Photo Strip view to make use of.

Continue reading →

Catering to the special marketing needs of nonprofit organizations, Blackbaud Inc. on Thursday released a new version of its Blackbaud CRM software which expands the software's functionality with a new browser-based dashboard, new fundraising and membership management functionality, and improved overall data management.

The major addition to Blackbaud CRM 2.93 is its Web dashboard. Previously, the software was only available as a Windows application, but now it can be accessed through Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Safari for iOS, and Android. The dashboard features a new, streamlined user interface and new batch commit functionality.

Continue reading →

iOS app Flipboard has already earned itself something of a name as a great way to aggregate multiple social networks and news media into a single, more easily managed stream. The latest version of the iPhone and iPad app sees the introduction of support for audio as well as the more usual text and image based content. Audio content can be scanned through just as you would the rest of your feeds, but it can also be played in the background while you continue with your browsing.

There is support for SoundCloud, NPR (National Public Radio) and PRI (Public Radio International), which gives you the opportunity to listen to a wide variety of podcasts,  radio broadcasts and more. By connecting Flipboard with SoundCloud you can listen to sounds that have been created or shared by your friends. There is a whole new audio category for you to explore and this interesting change in direction for the social networking tool.

Continue reading →

Australian software developer Auslogics has released major updates for two of its Windows performance tools. Auslogics BoostSpeed 5.3.0.0 is the company’s flagship tool, an all-in-one performance manager, whileAuslogics Disk Defrag 3.4.3.0 - whose functionality is included in BoostSpeed -- provides a free (for personal use) hard drive optimization tool.

The latest build includes numerous feature additions, performance improvements and bug fixes, plus introduces “partial” compatibility with Windows 8, with full compatibility promised for version 5.4.

Continue reading →

When browsing the Internet you may well have noticed that some of sites you visit are secure, while others are not. While HTTPS is most often used for secure shopping and banking web sites, there is no reason that connections to other pages should not be encrypted to help improve privacy and security. If this is something that has concerned you, HTTPS Everywhere could be just what you have been looking for.

This free browser extension can be used to ensure that a secure connection is used whenever available. There are a huge number of websites that offer support for encrypted HTTPS connections, and yet will default to sending visitors to the regular, unencrypted HTTP version of the sites. HTTPS Everywhere uses a series of specially written rules to redirect your browser, provided you are using Chrome or Firefox, to the secure version.

Continue reading →

If you used PCs back in the 1980s then you’ll probably remember that file management was, well, a little basic. To put it politely. But that all changed in 1985 with the arrival of XTree, a powerful file manager that came packed with functionality: the geeks of the day loved its feature set, speed and extensive list of keyboard shortcuts.

It didn’t last, of course -- the program was essentially killed off by the arrival of Windows Explorer. Which, while nothing like as powerful as XTree, was free and included with every PC. But if you still have fond memories of those early file managers then there could be a way to recapture them, as XTree Gold clone XFile has just been released as freeware.

Continue reading →

The figure is so important, I'm breaking it out from the long analysis posted mid-afternoon about the smartphone market consolidating around Apple and Samsung. The South Korean electronics giant is doing to Android on smartphones what Amazon does on tablets: Hugely fragment the market around a forked operating system. I warned about this three weeks ago in post "Google has lost control of Android". Now there is sales data to back it up.

Earlier today, Gartner released first quarter sales data for global handsets. Not shipments into the channel, but actual sales to end users. Market leader Samsung accounted for 40 percent of all Android smartphone sales, with no other manufacturer topping 10 percent. Sure Samsung's success lifts overall Android smartphone share -- 56.1 percent up from 36.4 percent a year earlier. But what's good for Samsung isn't necessarily in the best interests of the broader Android ecosystem.

Continue reading →

There are many manufacturer-created user interfaces for Android, and sadly, most of them are unpleasant.

Some are polluted with unremovable bloatware, some are sluggish performers, and some are just badly designed. For as many different versions of the Android user experience as there are, there are very few major builds that add remarkable innovations on top of the Android platform.

Continue reading →

If you're worried about data loss, turn to the cloud. That's what a new survey commissioned by CA suggests. Fifty-five percent of all US businesses expect usage of the cloud to increase to meet continuity objectives. That's an important statistic considering every one of the 300 businesses participating in the study experienced some type of data loss event in the past year.

Among the most common reasons for data loss are IT system failures (76 percent); human error (41 percent); and external threats and attacks (35 percent). An earlier CA study suggests that data loss events cost companies an average $160,000 every year.

Continue reading →

Today, Gartner put to end weeks of cellular handset debate. Apple apologists disputed Samsung's smartphone success over iPhone -- the presumption that the South Korean electronics giant benefits from greater shipments vs actual sales. Make no mistake: Samsung is the global leader overall and in the smartphone category, based on actual sales. Apologist arguments be damned.

That said, Apple's position is solid. Together, Apple and Samsung combined smartphone sales market share approaches 50 percent. Contrary to speculation that Windows Phone might appear as a third dominant mobile OS, the market is set to largely split between two vendors. As I explained three weeks ago in post, "Google has lost control of Android", Sasmung's rise isn't necessarily good for the broader ecosystem.

Continue reading →

Anyone who’s tapped into Microsoft Word’s autotext and autocorrect features will know how useful they can be, but what happens when you need that kind of automation in another program? The answer lies with a free-for-personal-use tool called PhraseExpress 8.0151.

This clever and powerful text replacement tool, also available as a portable build, gives you Autotext and Autocorrect functionality – plus a heck of a lot more – across your entire desktop, letting you speed up the way you enter and manipulate text in any program you have installed on your computer, not just Microsoft Word.

Continue reading →

"The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order," a boilerplate statement from Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC said on Wednesday.

The company's flagship smartphones are being held up in customs as a result of patent litigation with Apple, and their availability to consumers is currently on hold. Though it only launched on May 6, AT&T currently lists the One X as "sold out," and Sprint's EVO 4G LTE which was slated to launch on Friday, May 18, will be delayed. Pre-orders of the device do not have a guaranteed ship date.

Continue reading →