Latest Technology News

CyberLink has continued rapid development of its photo management and editing tool with the release of CyberLink PhotoDirector 4 Ultra. PhotoDirector 4, which appears on Mac OS X for the first time in addition to Windows, retails for $50 less than rival product Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Despite coming just six months after version 3 was released, PhotoDirector 4 adds a number of notable new features to its roster: facial recognition and content-aware removal tools, plus new HDR (High Dynamic Range) effects on single photos, and a Body Shaper tool for reshaping arms, face and body.

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CyberLink Corporation has unveiled PowerDirector 11, the latest version of its feature-packed consumer video editor.

And our favorite addition so far has to be its content-aware editing, a time-saving tool that sees the program automatically identify the major scenes in a movie, so that you can then import them in a flash.

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Everyone loves to save a little money here and there, but when the timely bargains result in an alliteratively name month -- September savings -- so much the better!

Brand new to the store this month is the much-anticipated TuneUp Utilities 2013. You can save 50 percent from TuneUp Utilities 2013 [3-PC], ideal for installing on three home computers. If you have a single PC, save even more with TuneUp Utilities 2013 [1-PC]. There is also TuneUp Utilities 2013 [UPGRADE] designed to enable previous users to upgrade, at a discount. Finally, a TuneUp Utilities 2013 + AVG Internet Security 2013 [1-PC] bundle will safeguard and maintain a single computer.

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Microsoft on Tuesday announced it has added recycle bin functionality to its SkyDrive cloud storage and collaboration suite, adding yet another layer of redundancy to the service to make sure the unthinkable doesn't happen and you actually delete a document.

I've "accidentally installed" plenty of things that have made me want to punch my own teeth out, and plenty of my work files have become corrupted, or have crashed before I could save changes…but I can say with some degree of confidence that I've never accidentally deleted a file. Maybe I'm some kind of keystroke wizard or something, because Microsoft likes to make extra sure people don't mistakenly delete something they need.

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The public cloud is undergoing dramatic changes as spending soars. Gartner forecasts a $109 billion market this year, up 19.6 percent from 2011. While Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) dominates the market today, public cloud spending rapidly shifts to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) looking ahead.

"The total public cloud services market size in 2011 was $91.4 billion, and it will grow to $206.6 billion in 2016", Ed Anderson, Gartner research director, says. "As the market grows, IaaS will become a larger part of the overall market, while the market share of cloud management and security services will grow as well".

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Kent Christensen, Datalink's Virtualization practice manager, spoke to me recently and offered some tips for any companies thinking about moving to the cloud.

Datalink provides datacenter services and solutions for mid-sized to enterprise organizations and consults, designs, integrates, implements, and supports and manages solutions from leading manufacturers like Cisco, EMC, NetApp, VMware and others. This encompasses both private cloud solutions and public/hybrid cloud solutions.

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Asus' Windows 8 tablet roadmap leaked a few days ago, revealing the company's intention to launch three tablets powered by Microsoft's soon to be released Windows 8 operating system. Bloggers and journalists have used the roadmap to argue that the pricing is too high to compete effectively against Apple iPads and Android tablets. Taken aside that the pricing may not be final, it seems like they are right, if you only compare price and nothing else.

Asus' entry model, the Vivo Tab RT, for instance, lists with a starting price of $599. That's $100 more than Apple's cheapest new iPad model, and $300 more than Google's Nexus 7 tablet. But can you really make that comparison?

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Security researchers this week uncovered a bug in Microsoft's Internet Explorer that is actively being exploited in targeted attacks and remote code execution. Microsoft responded by launching its own investigation of the vulnerability, but has no solution yet.

The vulnerability has been observed in Internet Explorer 6 through Internet Explorer 9 on Windows XP SP3, Vista, and Windows 7, and users can be infected simply by visiting a malicious website.

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You do even better! That's what I'd say to fellow BetaNews contributor Mihaita Bamburic if I ran into him in a hallway somewhere. As I watch with amusement, his "existential struggle" with the post-PC question, I have to chuckle a bit at his naïveté. Like most PC veterans, Mihaita tries to squeeze a square peg (tablet) into a round hole (desktop-centric thinking). He'll need to leave those preconceptions behind if he ever hopes to do more than scratch the post-PC surface.

For starters, reset your purchasing criteria. You need to forget about those expensive "clamshell" tablet/dock combos and start off with a simple, cheap Android tab. I picked up a dozen Acer Iconia A200s on eBay for use at the new school my wife and I are building. Prices ranged from $170-200 for refurbished units with 8GB or 16GB of onboard SD storage. At that price point, you can pretty much experiment to your heart's content without worrying about trashing some "transforming" device that costs more than a decent laptop.

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Motorola, which recently announced the Droid Razr HD smartphones as well as the Droid Razr HD Developer Edition, added a new smartphone to its line up -- the Razr i. In two color designs -- white and black, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the well-received Droid Razr M.

Unexpectedly, the star of the show is not the device itself, but rather Intel's Atom processor which makes it the first commercially available smartphone clocked at 2GHz. Just like the Droid Razr M, it comes with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced display and, according to Motorola, a battery that is 40 percent more powerful than the competition. By competition, Motorola is referring to the year-old Apple iPhone 4S. On the back, there is an 8MP camera with an illuminated sensor and HDR (High Dynamic Range) capability, that can load in less than a second and can take 10 pictures using multi-shot mode, again, in less than a second as long as the display is not off.

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TuneUp Utilities 2013, the latest edition of the supercharged PC cleanup and maintenance suite, is now available.

And while the new build doesn’t include any revolutionary additions, the suite has become significantly more powerful in a few areas, in particular with regard to hard drive cleaning.

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Programs that aim to simplify complex processes are often doomed to failure. You would think that any software designed to bring music making to the masses -- music making being something that people dedicate their lives to -- would fall at the first hurdle. But MAGIX is a company that has produced accessible software for many years, and the Music Maker range is one of its flagship products.

MAGIX Music Maker 2013 picks up form where its predecessor left off, but whether you are someone who has used a previous version of the program or you are new to the range, there is a lot to explore in this surprisingly power music creation software. The latest incarnation of the program is very much an evolution of an established product, and while it has little major in the way of new features, it feels like a natural progression.

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Simply stated: Microsoft wants to end any pretense you own the software, while curbing software piracy in the process. Oh yeah, expect to pay more for Office than you do today. For many households or small businesses, that's lots more, particularly if they buy into the Office 365 subscription paradigm.

Office 2013 is all about subscription pricing, something Microsoft has attempted several times over the years in pilot form but never really brought to the mass market -- certainly not broadly. The company will continue selling boxed software but the big push is about subscriptions. Hell, I had to dig deep to find retail pricing. Today's pricing announcement pushed Office 365 versions instead. Right, the new subscription bundles.

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There's an encore to Jelly Bean Build 1. Android Open Kang Project team has announced the availability of the second release named Jelly Bean Build 2 that should be even more impressive that the first.

So what's new? AOKP Jelly Bean Build 2 is based on Android 4.1.1 , build number JRO03L and adds stability improvements, improved functionality and larger supported devices list, that now includes Samsung Galaxy Note and Galaxy S III for Verizon Wireless and even the venerable Samsung Galaxy S. As a nice bonus for Google Nexus 7 (grouper) owners, 720p video recording is enabled for the front-facing camera.

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Last week, I asked: "Will you buy iPhone 5?" -- and more than 1,000 of you responded. Whoa, are you so not interested in this handset: 74.55 percent answered no. Now compare that to the poll about iPhone 4S, following its announcement: 39.6 percent "no". Well, well, perhaps Stephen Baker, NPD's veep of industry analysis, is right in his pre-launch prediction that US iPhone 5 sales won't be as big as many people predict.

Juxtapose that against early sales -- 2 million preorders in the first 24 hours, which sure would seem to indicate big, big success ahead. That's double the number during the same time period a year ago. Well, hell, how do those reconcile? Broader distribution is easy answer -- nine rather than seven countries -- and many more retail outlets in each. Then there's the obvious: The poll reflects a select audience of techno-oriented readers whose buying priorities are different. Even so, when comparing to last year's poll, a startling buying trend emerges, and it's not good.

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