Latest Technology News

The notion of a Facebook phone has certainly lingered for a few years now -- the concept reached a point of half-hearted fruition in the HTC ChaCha and Salsa in 2011, but neither really embodied the true potential of a Facebook phone. They were much more of "throw and see what sticks" devices -- with the only tangible evidence of deeper Facebook integration being the Facebook button on the devices’ fronts.

Much has changed in nearly two years: Facebook’s Open Graph, the acquisition of Instagram and the introduction of Facebook Camera and Messenger applications, among others. Perhaps the most strident progression Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has made in the past two years is reaching 1 billion active users. And counting. That’s approximately one in seven people in the world, and an even larger proportion if accounting for the developed world alone.

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Every week Microsoft's Office team does a webinar. That is not news, but this week the company is focusing on Office specifically within Windows 8. While perhaps many of you are not yet using the latest versions of Office and Windows, it is pretty much assured that eventually you will be -- assimilation is inevitable.

With that thought in mind, Microsoft's Doug Thomas announces that "if you are working with Windows 8-or your business will be using Windows 8 soon-check out this week's webinar. We will go over shortcuts and quick navigation for keyboard and mouse, plus answer your questions".

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Starting April 5, AT&T will carry one model of Amazon's tablet in stores, with $150 discount for those customers making a two-year contractual commitment. Just as T-Mobile tries to free Americans from subsidies, the nation's second-largest carrier reels them back in. The 32GB Kindle Fire 8.9" 4G LTE will sell for $399 without commitment -- $249 with one. The higher of the two prices reflects Amazon's recent $100 reduction, just 18 days ago.

Subsidized pricing makes Amazon's tablet one of the most-affordable mid-size models available. For example, Apple's 7.9-inch iPad mini starts at $329 and $459 with LTE. However, for comparable storage (32GB), iPad mini is $559 with LTE. Those prices require no contract. Something else to consider: Unless Amazon and AT&T have some special agreement that I don't know about, that $249 or $399 includes advertisements -- "special offers" -- that buyers must pay an extra $15 to remove. Still, $249 out the door makes Kindle Fire HD 8.9" the lowest-priced tablet for sale with super high-resolution display.

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Last night marked the debut of season three of "Game of Thrones", the wildly popular HBO show based on the books by George R. R. Martin. The show generates major publicity and even bigger Internet piracy to go along with that. Thanks to a large, and Internet-savvy, fan base, the fantasy series is the single-most pirated TV show ever. Game of Thrones had one episode downloaded 4.3 million times.

Director David Petrarca already is on record saying he is not concerned by the piracy. But, now, in what feels almost like an April Fool's joke that came a day early, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo stepped up to say he has no problem with the show's status as the top download. Lombardo told Entertainment Weekly that "The demand is there, and it certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD sales. [Piracy is] something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network".

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BetaNews has learned that Facebook's "new home on Android" is not a phone, as widely rumored, but -- get this -- a smartwatch. A source with knowledge of the social network's April 4 event contacted me after reading colleague Mihaita Bamburic's Saturday post: "I'm a gadget lover who doesn't love smartwatches".

I simply couldn't believe that, so I contacted a truly trusted source, who acknowledged -- after lots of coaxing -- that the watch tip is genuine. I still didn't believe and contacted another source, who wasn't immediately available because of Easter celebrations. Like Mihaita, I think smartwatches are a dumb idea. About an hour ago, he (or it she) confirmed the Android timepiece will be Facebook's show-stopping announcement.

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Google really embraces 1 April and some of its fools are excellent. This year’s highlight, for me, is a new Treasure Hunting mode in Google Maps (I’m currently using Bing for all my mapping needs, but I had to switch back to Google just to try this).

According to the search giant, "Treasure Maps is our Beta Maps technology and has certain system requirements. Your system may not be able to display at higher resolutions than paper print. Take care when unfolding the map to avoid ripping it".

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Seventeenth in a series. Love triangles were commonplace during the early days of the PC. Adobe, Apple and Microsoft engaged in such a relationship during the 1980s, and allegiances shifted -- oh did they. This installment of Robert X. Cringely's 1991 classic Accidental Empires shows how important is controlling a standard and getting others to adopt it.

Of the 5 billion people in the world, there are only four who I’m pretty sure have stayed consistently on the good side of Steve Jobs. Three of them -- Bill Atkinson, Rich Page, and Bud Tribble -- all worked with Jobs at Apple Computer. Atkinson and Tribble are code gods, and Page is a hardware god. Page and Tribble left Apple with Jobs in 1985 to found NeXT Inc., their follow-on computer company, where they remain in charge of hardware and software development, respectively.

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Donald Trump is in negotiations with Fox and NBC to bring a new reality show to television, featuring corporate CEOs swapping roles. The concept is in advanced planning stages, with a mock-up pilot already shot and the two networks vying to add the series to their 2013-14 season. Normally, we don't bother with entertainment news at BetaNews, but two of the confirmed chief executives will interest our readership -- Apple's Tim Cook and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft.

Trump and NBC already have a working relationship on a number of projects from the original "The Apprentice" and its spin-offs. But Fox fiercely is negotiating rights, which aren't bound by Trump's existing contractual commitments with the Peacock network. News of the deal leaked Sunday night in an email accidentally -- or accidentally on purpose -- sent to several trade publications, including Variety. Leaks like this are often deliberate and designed to foil negotiations or to increase pressure on one of the parties.

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Avast! 8 is the latest generation of avast!’s security range, and as usual it’s available in several different packages, from the basic avast! Free 8 to the do-everything Premier build.

If you just want solid, standard all-round protection, though, avast! Internet Security 8 could be the best option. It takes all the core security suite basics -- antivirus, browsing protection, firewall, spam filter -- and extends them further with some useful new tools, making for what seems to be an appealing mix.

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In what will surely be viewed as a controversial, yet likely politically correct decision, today the Google homepage is running with a Doodle portraying deceased labor leader Cesar Chavez, in honor of what would have been his 86th birthday. Chavez passed away back in 1993, but his work and memory have lived on. In 2011, President Barack Obama proclaimed March 31 as the official Cesar Chavez day.

While the Easter holiday is celebrated by Christians around the world, the holiday is just that -- one religion only. On the other hand, I think we can all, no matter what your denomination, relate to an activist farm worker who stood up for the civil rights of humans of all backgrounds.

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Now that's a question I never expected to ask on Easter morning. But instead of waking up to egg hunts, I'm haunted by Brian Fagioli's Google+ Chromebook Community post overnight. He stirs up the hornets nest today.

"Using Chrome OS is a lot like prisoners in jail making alcohol in the toilet", he writes. "Even when you are limited, you will find a way. While it is fun to find a way to do things despite the limitations of Chrome OS, the question remains: why do we choose to put ourselves in jail?"

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HERE Drive Beta, Nokia's navigation app for Windows Phone, is currently nowhere to be found inside the company's exclusive app collection for Lumia devices. A number of users report that the problem occurs both for new smartphones or after factory resetting another. HERE Drive Beta is missing, despite the app being previously available.

I can attest to that latter scenario after performing a factory reset yesterday on my Lumia 920. Heading to the Store to install the app (practically to update Nokia Drive to HERE Drive Beta) now results in very-cryptic error code, 805a0194, whereas performing a manual search lists HERE Maps instead, among other results.

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March 31 is World Backup Day. It’s when you’re reminded of the importance of having a backup for all of your precious data and settings. Anyone who’s confronted the horror of data loss full on should know the importance of having at least one backup copy of all their key documents, photos and other files and settings, but why wait until you’re faced with the prospect of losing irreplaceable data or shelling out hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to get it back?

Windows ships with a relatively effective backup tool, but it’s blunt and not particularly flexible to your exacting needs. Instead, you should turn to the plethora of third-party backup utilities if you’re serious about protecting your data from harm. And to celebrate World Backup Day, we’ve put together a selection of amazing deals on backup software that could save you money as well as put your data in a safer place this Easter.

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If you're the sort of person that wants to wear a smartwatch every day, then I'm sorry but we can't be friends. I should likely be polite and say the same overused line, "It's not you, it's me", but frankly I don't care for such folks to tell a blatant lie. I'm the sort of person that loves gadgets so much that I can't get enough of them at least 10 hours a day, but I draw the line at wearing one on the wrist. I'm a gadget lover who doesn't like smartwatches.

I'm not a fool nor reject the idea. I understand why someone would want to wear a smartwatch, but only on a certain occasion. I certainly wouldn't take anything but a beater climbing, hiking, playing sports, running and so on. A smartwatch might be useful there, without having the fear of scratching or ruining an expensive timepiece. But aren't there better tools for the job? And, in real-life, a smartwatch makes even less sense as it's not a replacement for anything, really, not even a real watch.

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Sixteenth in a series. Robert X. Cringely's tome Accidental Empires takes on a startling prescient tone in this next installment. Remember as you read that the book published in 1991. Much he writes here about Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is remarkably insightful from the context of looking back. Some portions foreshadow the future -- or one possible outcome -- when looking at Apple following Jobs' ouster in 1985 and the company now following his death.

The most dangerous man in Silicon Valley sits alone on many weekday mornings, drinking coffee at II Fornaio, an Italian restaurant on Cowper Street in Palo Alto. He’s not the richest guy around or the smartest, but under a haircut that looks as if someone put a bowl on his head and trimmed around the edges, Steve Jobs holds an idea that keeps some grown men and women of the Valley awake at night. Unlike these insomniacs, Jobs isn’t in this business for the money, and that’s what makes him dangerous.

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