Latest Technology News

The BBC’s weather predictions tend to be reasonably accurate, and now you can check the corporation’s latest forecasts on a new app available for iOS and Android.

When you launch the app it detects your location and tells you what the weather is like where you are, providing details such as high and low temperatures, current conditions, humidity, visibility and wind speed.

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Grand Theft Auto remains a popular game for both Playstation and Xbox platforms, but creator Dave Jones has since moved on, launching his own nWay Studio. Now the company, in conjunction with Android game console maker Ouya, announces a brand new franchise is launching.

ChronoBlade will debut later this year as a browser-based, free-to-play, RPG featuring up to 4-player gameplay. However, Ouya tells us that it will get an exclusive on the new game. "Ouya will be the very first platform to offer the Chronoblade demo which will be available this week via the DISCOVER storefront and playable at OUYA’s E3 location next week", the company says.

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Keeping your PC’s drivers up-to-date can sometimes help to enhance performance, improve stability, and generally make your system run just a little more smoothly. Most people don’t have time to regularly check for updates, of course, but that doesn’t matter as there’s now a whole class of utilities which will do that for you. The latest example is IObit’s new beta, Driver Booster, and we gave the program a quick trial to see how it worked.

It’s immediately obvious that the program is focused primarily on ease of use. There’s no complex interface, no jargon, no searching around trying to decide what you need to do: just launch Driver Booster, it immediately scans your PC, and a report appears just a few seconds later.

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My favorite platform for shuffling media around my home and, most importantly, getting it to my Google TV, today gets a bit better. Okay, actually a lot better. Plex announces updates rolling out to its Media Server platform, bringing it to version 0.9.8 -- one step closer to the fabled 1.0 release.

While the software has not yet reached that 1.0 threshold, do not get the impression it is not ready for your home. The service has been full-featured for sometime now.

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It has taken some time, but Windows Phone slowly gets the apps that users really want. The latest arrival is Temple Run Brave, which plays off of the Pixar Animation Studios movie that was released through Disney. It is the first of two themed Temple Run games, with Oz later making its way to the mobile gaming platform, though not yet to Microsoft's mobile OS.

Microsoft's Michael Stroh tells us "in Temple Run: Brave, you play Merida, heroine of the Disney/Pixar movie, as she races, slides, jumps, turns and shoots across Scotland’s backcountry wilds -- all in gorgeous visuals inspired by the film".

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Thirty-second in a series. Windows Store has seen one of the largest growths in its history this week breaking the 3,000 apps mark for the first time this year. A total of 3,033 apps were released, raising the total app count of the US Windows Store to 58,011 apps.

44,905 of those apps are listed as free in the store, an increase of 2,413 apps this week alone. Paid apps increased by 616 apps this week to a total of 13,106.

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What a strange coincidence: Earlier this week, Smithsonian Channel's "Air Disasters" broadcast an episode about the downing of Korean Airlines flight 007 in 1983 -- at the height of the Cold War. Turns out the Soviet Union recovered the black boxes and hid them for a decade. I'm old enough to remember the Cold War and what the United States fought against. I told my wife: "Sometimes I really wish the Soviet empire still existed, so Americans had a measure for government bad behavior". A day later, the Guardian and Washington Post broke what likely is the biggest story about U.S. surveillance since the Watergate break in. The activity stinks of behavior opposed decades ago.

The National Security Agency spies on you, in secret, something many people suspected. The NSA monitors Internet servers, without warrants. In a Google+ comment today, Joe Betsill brilliantly and succinctly captures what changed: "There's a difference between suspicion and evidence". He links to an Electronic Frontier Foundation "Timeline to NSA domestic spying". I strongly suggest reading the EFF material, in addition to the Guardian and Washington Post investigative reports -- so that you are informed.

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Ever since Windows 8 arrived I have struggled to fully embrace the Modern UI. The new user interface offers a polarizing experience -- it impresses me on a touchscreen but fails to get my attention on a run-of-the-mill display like my laptop features. For this reason, my forays into the new realm are mostly limited to reading and replying to emails, chatting with friends on Facebook and using Twitter. The Desktop continues to be my safe heaven, relying on it to carry out my daily routine.

Don't get me wrong, the Modern UI is not bad but it feels much more natural to use on a tablet -- touching tiles gives way to an intimate and enjoyable experience. But buying a new device which offers a touchscreen is not a particularly sound method of kindling a long-lasting relationship with the Modern UI. With the decline of the PC market, Microsoft is aware of this as it looks to revamp the new user interface in Windows 8.1 with new features aimed at "stealing" users away from the Desktop.

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Despite the looming possibility of a buyout, Hulu continues to push its service forward with updates and new platforms. The latest version of Hulu Plus, the premium arm of the online TV service, today updates its iPad offering, with what the company calls an entirely new experience for your tablet.

"We’ve redesigned the app from the ground up, focusing on discoverability, efficiency, and our overall user experience", Hulu tells us. "We’ve really focused on developing several new ways to make your favorite shows, and your favorite new shows you never even knew existed, easier to find", the company further explains.

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Almost two weeks ago Microsoft unveiled its next generation console, the Xbox One. The unveiling did not disclose the pricing and launch date of the gaming system, nor whether it would be possible for Xbox One buyers to trade-in or resell used games.

We still don’t know the retail details, but we do have a clear idea about trading games thanks to an assurance from Larry Hyrb and an official confirmation from Microsoft.

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If you’ve set up a new PC recently then you won’t need us to tell you just how tedious the experience can be, as you scour the web for your favorite applications, downloading and installing them one by one.

Fortunately there are plenty of tools which will try to simplify this process for you, though, and USSU Unlimited is one of the latest. The program supports 45 common applications (Flash, Java, Firefox, Chrome, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Adobe Reader, VLC Media Player and more), can download and install them in a click, and then detects and downloads updates as they appear.

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Across the globe sales of external server storage have dropped for the first time since 2009 according to research company IDC. Its Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker reveals that revenues in the first quarter of 2013 showed a 0.9 percent decline over the same period last year.

Total storage sales for servers, including the smaller market for disks internal to server cabinets, slipped by 3.2 percent over the same period. EMC maintains its lead in the server storage field with a 30.4 percent revenue share, followed by NetApp with 14.9 and IBM at 10.4 percent. If you look at the market by all server storage not just external disks, EMC still leads with 23.2 percent ahead of HP which has 15.5 and Dell with 13.9 percent.

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Undoubtedly, Twitter deems Windows Phone 8 as a second-class citizen. The popular social network introduced filters for its Android and iOS apps nearly six months ago but only late-yesterday did the feature finally arrive on the tiled mobile operating system.

Similar to its Android and iOS counterparts, Twitter for Windows Phone 8 introduces eight filters -- Vignette, Warm, Cool, 1963, 1972, Golden Hour, Antique and Black & White -- which can be applied to new pictures or already existing ones from the Photos gallery. Adding filters is straightforward -- select the picture and either scroll to the right or hit the "filters" button to choose the desired effect.

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Understanding your PC’s RAM usage is a key part of troubleshooting many odd Windows problems, but unfortunately this isn’t always easy. The standard tools, like Task Manager, are fine for diagnosing simple issues, but just don’t provide the information you’ll need to cope with anything more complex.

As usual, though, Microsoft Sysinternals has a portable tool which can help. RAMMap provides a very in-depth look at your PC’s current RAM usage, and while it’s aimed mainly at Windows experts, the program also has some elements which will be useful to just about anyone.

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The good news for many frustrated users of Windows 8 is Microsoft is bringing back the start button in Windows 8.1. It might not operate in quite the same way as the Start button does in previous incarnations of the operating system, but at least it’s there.

Microsoft released a teaser video a couple of days ago which highlighted many of the new features to look forward to in the OS refresh, but the Start button wasn’t among them. The software giant did however, demo the button -- and the improved interface -- at Computex 2013, and a video captured by NetworkWorld shows our little clickable friend in action.

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