Latest Technology News

The rumors about a new LG quad-core phone are true. Qualcomm confirms the South Korean manufacturer is currently baking an LTE smartphone based on the Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset. We've seen the chipset in the fastest and most expensive Android tablet around, giving LG's smartphone the right credentials for speed.

LG's new quad-core LTE smartphone is anticipated to be released in September, followed by global availability. Because of the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset it has the makings of a smartphone speed champion, being powered by a quad-core Krait Snapdragon S4 CPU and Adreno 320GPU, a combination that has given Qualcomm's Mobile Development Platform (MDP) the title of fastest Android tablet on the market.

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Last week, a federal district court made a ruling that has broad implications for your privacy on Facebook. The end result is that you should be much more careful about what you share on Facebook with whom, because regardless of whether your profile is private or not, the Federal Government can use your friends to gather evidence against you, which in turn can be used against you in a court of law.

This is what happened to accused gangster Melvin Colon. The Bronx, N.Y. man used his Facebook to brag about his apparent exploits, which according to reports included messages of loyalty to his gang, posts on violent acts and threats to other people. The US Government was then able to find a friend who worked against Colon, and allowed law enforcement to use his or her Facebook to gather evidence.

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Amazon just dropped an invite in my inbox for an unnamed "press conference". Timing sure is interesting with persistent rumors about a new Kindle Fire and possibly even a 10-inch tablet. All this around when about Apple is rumored to hold an event that could unveil the next iPhone. I don't take much stock in rumors, just what we know.

Which is this: Amazon will hold a press conference in two weeks at Barker Hanger in Santa Monica, Calif. Please use comments to make your guess what on earth it will be.

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Second in a series. Three quarters of the bits being schlepped over the Internet today are video bits, so video standards are more important than ever. To accommodate this huge load of video data we’ve developed compression technologies, special protocols like the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), we’ve pushed data to the edge of the network with Content Distribution Networks (originally Akamai but now many others).

All these Internet video technologies are in transition, too, with H.264 and HTML5 video in the ascendence while stalwarts like RealVideo and even Flash Video appear to be in decline. The latter is most significant because Adobe’s Flash has been -- thanks to YouTube -- the most ubiquitous video standard. Flash video was everywhere. But with Flash apparently leaving the ever-growing mobile space, will we ever see another truly ubiquitous web video standard? We already have and it is called ClipStream G2 JavaScript video.

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Shutting down Windows 8 can be frustrating as it is no longer the intuitive process that Windows users are accustomed to in previous versions. Now in order to perform any power-related operation, the standard way is to invoke the Charms menu, which shows up on the right side of the screen. It might even seem unnatural now that the Start menu is gone.

Let's talk about the "normal" way to shut down Windows 8. In order to "summon" the Charms menu, just press Windows Key + C and it will show up. If your preferred "weapon" of choice is the mouse, then simply move the cursor to either the upper or lower right corner of the screen and it will be displayed as well. From there one has to go through Settings -> Power and select either Sleep, Restart or Shutdown to perform any power operation. If you're old school you might remember that pressing ALT+F4 yields the same result. But there's an easier way to shutdown your Windows 8 PC, without going through any menus.

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Would someone please call the branding police and have them arrest Microsoft's entire executive team. The charge: Indecent logo.

Today the software giant introduced its first major corporate logo change in about a quarter century. I'm all for a brave new look, except there's little brave or memorable about this one. Apple should call a holiday and give out champagne to celebrate. This is one big branding frak up.

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When you’re trying to remember that important URL you visited yesterday then viewing your browser’s history will probably provide the details you need. But if you’ve more than one browser installed then it could still take quite some time to trawl through your previous online sessions.

Fortunately there’s now a simpler option in the shape of BrowsingHistoryView, the latest NirSoft release, which presents your Firefox, IE, Chrome and Safari histories all in a single table.

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When you first heard about Windows 8, what were your expectations of the operating system?  I always have a set of features in mind that I hope will make their way into Microsoft's next operating system, some dating back as far as Windows 95.

Windows 8 is special to a certain degree as it is the first Windows operating system that brings touch to the center of focus. The reason for that is the lucrative tablet market currently dominated by iPad and to a lesser degree Android. Windows 8 will be Microsoft's entry into the market, not only as a maker of operating systems, but also tablets like the Microsoft Surface. Some say that Microsoft sacrifices the experience of desktop users for that, and while I would not go as far, it is noteworthy that the company promotes more touch and tablet related features of the operating system than features improved or added to the desktop part of it.

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Did you know that updating Facebook while driving can cause lane veering by up to one meter, or that texting adds 8.5m to the overall stopping distance when travelling at 70mph? Well, it’s true according to a new study by Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) on behalf of insurance company esure. The report also says that 1 in 5 drivers took their eyes off the road for 7 seconds when they heard a ringing phone. Check out the fancy PDF infographic if you want to find out more.

To help remove these distractions (and reduce the number of claims it has to process, presumably), esure has produced a free Android app which eliminates mobile phone distractions. The DriveOFF app, available through Google Play, uses GPS to detect when your car is in motion and travelling above 10mph and automatically turns off all other apps and blocks incoming calls and texts.

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To monetize the ever increasing mobile traffic from smartphones and tablets, YouTube has announced the launch of TrueView in-stream video ads for mobile devices. YouTube content creators can now increase their revenues based on the video sharing website's mobile visits, which means that YouTube does away with an ad-free mobile viewing experience. It was bound to happen at one point or another.

In 2011 mobile traffic accounted for 20 percent of global YouTube views and its growth has been "phenomenal", according to Phil Farhi, YouTube group product manager. More than a trillion views marked 2011 for YouTube, meaning in excess of 200 billion mobile views were not monetized coming from the then 350 million mobile devices. According to YouTube, TrueView in-stream video ads are preferred to the standard video advertisements, since increased revenue can be generated from it. Responding to the announcement on YouTube one user stated that 1.3 million visits each month, accounting for 72.8 percent of his views, come from mobile devices, which is "lost" revenue.

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Leading virtualization developer VMware has announced three major new releases across its range of consumer products.VMware Workstation 9.0, VMware Fusion 5.0 for Mac and free cut-down VMware Player 5.0 (Windows only) have all been launched, boasting a number of major new features, improvements and the all-important raft of bug fixes.

Changes include support for the latest versions of Windows and OS X where applicable, plus redesigned user interfaces, virtual hardware improvements and a large number of minor tweaks, improvements and new features.

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Just like Firefox, Chrome rockets through version numbers as though it is going out of fashion. Although Google’s foray into the world of web browsers for iPhone and iPad is fairly recent, Chrome for iOS already is version 21. The latest release is a relatively minor one, but there is still one feature that brings the browser in line with other more socially aware apps.

The big news in this release: addition of new sharing options. Found a website that you think your friends will love? There is no need to copy and paste the URL into an email as there are now new sharing options built directly into the app. A new popup menu lets you share pages through Google+, Facebook, Twitter or via email.

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Everything Everywhere has been granted the right to utilize the 1800MHz spectrum for 4G connectivity by UK communications regulator Ofcom. According to Ofcom, the license was awarded following market demand that, according to a European Commision decision, forces United Kingdom to grant a 4G license for 900MHz and 1800MHz spectrum, the latter being used by Everything Everywhere.

Since Everything Everywhere is the first UK carrier that is allowed by Ofcom to deploy 4G LTE, the communications regulator promptly tried to insure that its decision had solid ground, stating that any delay would be detrimental to consumers and "there is no material risk that those benefits will be outweighed by a distortion of competition". The 2011/251/EU Decision of the European Commision combined with the required market demand created the situation where the UK carrier can deploy 4G LTE starting September 11, 2012.

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If you live in the right region, the game controller now costs $109.99 US, Microsoft revealed today. Say, didn't Kinect sell for $149.99 yesterday? That's a helluva discount out of season.

Microsoft's Larry Hyrb describes this as a "permanently reduced price". Well, it is for some -- North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific now and Australia and New Zealand on October 4. Europe, Middle East, Asia and Japan won't see permanent price cuts.

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice Intellectual Property Task Force announced on Tuesday that they had for the first time shut down third-party Android app stores for piracy: applanet.net, appbucket.net, and snappzmarket.com. The three domains are now in the custody of the U.S. government and in their places are FBI shutdown notices.

In the last twelve months, the FBI has seized hundreds of domains related to various illicit activities, including "carding" (selling stolen credit card information), the sale of counterfeit merchandise, wire and bank fraud via botnet, and, in the case of Megaupload organized crime.

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