Latest Technology News

It seems that every online company is in a sharing mood at the moment. Facebook has already come clean about the data requests it has received from the US government, Microsoft wants to tell us more and Google is really keen on the idea. The latest company to express concern about the restrictions on reporting about government data requests is LinkedIn.

In a "Letter to the LinkedIn community", Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of LinkedIn, Erika Rottenberg, not only announces the publication of the social network's Transparency Report for H1 2013, but also expresses "great disappointment and frustration" at the limitations on what can be reported. Rottenberg reveals that she has written to the FBI to ask that LinkedIn be permitted to release additional data about requests that have been made.

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Microsoft and AT&T have announced a collaboration to allow enterprise customers to connect to Microsoft's cloud platform using a private network. The solution will use cloud integration technology to pair VPN with Azure and allow customers to benefit from enterprise grade security with as much as 50 percent lower latency compared to a normal public Internet connection.

"This is a game changer for businesses that have been seeking a more secure way to reap the benefits of cloud services," says Andy Geisse, CEO, AT&T Business Solutions. "By bringing the security and performance of our virtual private network to Windows Azure, we expect to energize enterprise demand for cloud solutions".

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Internet Explorer 11 is a big improvement over previous versions of Microsoft’s browser, but it’s only available on Windows 8.1. Or rather that was the case. Following on from the early Developer Preview put out in late July, Microsoft has announced a Release Preview of its new browser for Windows 7.

Building on IE10, Internet Explorer 11 is speedier -- Microsoft says the performance improvements make it 30 percent faster than other browsers -- and introduces support for the latest web standards, such as WebGL.

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IBM has been at the forefront of social business software for a while and today the firm launches its new SmartCloud, a set of cloud-based social business tools aimed at empowering global workforces.

It's aimed at enabling executives such as human resource managers to create communities for new employees to speed up induction time, for example, or sales executives to conduct impromptu video chats with colleagues and share information. By combining social tools and mobile devices in the cloud it aims to help people work more effectively, collaboratively and securely from any location.

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There can be few of us who don’t rely on a todo list of one form or another to manage our increasingly hectic schedules -- and there are certainly plenty of tools to choose from. To help juggle deadlines and manage my time, I've long relied on Any.do, starting off with the iOS app and then migrating to the Android version and Chrome extension. Now there's a new tool to play with: the Any.do Chrome App.

Google recently celebrated Chrome's fifth anniversary with a push of apps for the browser, and Any.do is just the latest big name to find itself included in the For Your Desktop section of the Chrome Web Store. As there was already an extension available, what’s the point of a separate Chrome App?

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In an effort to lure potential buyers who prefer large smartphones and steer its customers away from the flock of new Android flagships, Canadian maker BlackBerry today unveiled its biggest smartphone yet. It's called the BlackBerry Z30 and comes with the latest BB 10 OS version -- 10.2 -- out-of-the-box.

Here are some of the key specs: 5-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 720 by 1280; 1.7 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor; 2 GB of RAM; 2,880 mAh battery; 16 GB of internal storage; 8 MP back-facing camera; 2 MP front-facing camera and 4G LTE cellular connectivity. For those who have kept a close eye on the Canadian brand, the BlackBerry Z30 is one of the worst kept secrets of 2013 so far, with numerous rumors and leaks describing it in the past couple of months.

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Today is iOS 7 day! But there is more than just a new operating system for your iPhone, iPad and iPod to look forward to; Apple also has a redesigned iCloud website for you to use. Unsurprisingly the new design takes heavy inspiration from the look of iOS 7, mimicking the floaty, layered styling that graces the new mobile OS.

Log into your account and you'll immediately be greeted by a muted, blurry background, over the top of which various icons appear to float. Apps including Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Reminders and Find My iPhone all now sport the iOS 7 look, but the beta editions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote retain their older design. It looks as though there might still be a little work to do -- not all icons have been redesigned, for instance.

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We all have information relating to banks, insurance companies, utilities, retailers and more that we need to keep. But now that we increasingly manage our accounts online how do you cope with saving statements and other important information that you receive electronically?

The online organizer service doxo thinks it has the answer and has added email to the range of information it can collate. The doxo Email Import option automatically imports, organizes and archives all of the emails for key accounts that you receive through your inbox and it works with Gmail, Outlook.com and all the leading mail providers.

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Microsoft can pop the champagne. The software giant has scored a major win in its uphill battle for Windows Phone 8 enterprise and government adoption -- its smartphone operating system is officially FIPS 140-2 certified. The accreditation was given by a joint effort between the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Communications Security Establishment Canada, called Cryptographic Module Validation Program.

The FIPS 140-2 accreditation, which was received earlier this month according to official documents, makes it possible for Windows Phone 8 users to handle sensitive information on their devices, when working in regulated industries -- financial and health-care institutions and for the Canadian and US governments, for instance.

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The results of a survey released by GFI Software show that a startling 96.5 percent of respondents use public Wi-Fi networks at least once a week to carry out work related tasks. The survey carried out by Opinion Matters asked 1,000 U.S. office workers with a tablet or smartphone who travel to and from work on a train, bus or subway about where, how and what they use their mobile devices for, and how those mobile devices have impacted the way they work both inside and outside the workplace.

More than one-third (34.2 percent) of those respondents reported they accessed public Wi-Fi at least 20 times a week during their commutes, with some employees saying they connect more than 70 times a week. This activity puts company data and passwords at risk from packet sniffing and other forms of traffic interception.

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CyberLink PowerDirector has been one of the top consumer video editors for a few years now, and you don’t have to use it for long to understand why.

The core editor gets the program off to a good start. Import your source files into the Media Room, organize them on the 100 track timeline, and apply hundreds of effects and transitions by dragging and dropping: it’s all very easy.

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After saying everyone except hardware partners would need to wait until next month to get their hands on Windows 8.1, Microsoft last week relented and made the RTM available to developers and IT professionals.

Oddly there was no sign of the Windows 8.1 Enterprise RTM at the time, with Microsoft saying only that it would be available later this month. Fortunately, it turns out the wait wasn’t a long one, as the build is now available for Volume License customers as well as TechNet and MSDN subscribers.

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Windows 8.1 has been chewed on around the internet for sometime now, with a Preview release, TechNet and MSDN launch, and...well, shall we say other locations it can be found? From the start (I swear I intended no pun), we have known that the upgrade will be a free one -- Microsoft is treating this as a service pack, though it's just a bit more than that.

Now we have details on what those non-Windows 8 customers will be ponying up to make the move to this new Start button enabled interface.

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China has been in the spotlight lately. Most recently, the country was rumored to be the major catalyst for the "low cost" iPhone 5c. However, this has largely been discredited since the phone was revealed to not be "low cost", but instead a relatively expensive, premium device. However, China is still a major player in the computer market and manufacturers are chomping at the bit to take advantage of it. Today, Canonical announces that Hewlett Packard is focused on the nation and will be selling Ubuntu-based laptops in its 1,500 retail stores.

Canonical says, "Ubuntu’s retail presence has grown again as HP brings a range of laptops pre-installed with a Chinese-centric version of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to over 1,500 of its stores across all major cities in China. Consumers in China will now be able to purchase HP laptops running Ubuntu directly from stores, where they will also find information packs and marketing materials to help with their purchase".

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Microsoft is no stranger to finding itself on the receiving end of complaints about security issues that are found in Windows and its other software. But now the Redmond company is turning the tables on consumers, saying that they need to do more to secure their own computers. Microsoft's research shows that Internet users are taking fewer precautions when they're online.

This is based on declining Microsoft Computing Safety Index (MCSI) scores over the last couple of years. The MCSI system was developed in 2011 as a way to measure the security savviness of web users. The system takes into account whether users do common things such as installing anti-malware software, enabling a firewall and keeping software up to date. It also factors in whether users are aware of the importance of using secure websites, using unique passwords and taking care of the personal information they share online.

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