Latest Technology News

Microsoft is expanding its collection of Bing apps on Windows Phone with the addition of Bing Health & Fitness. The offering, that debuted on Windows 8.1 last year, is meant for "Microsoft testing purposes only", but is available to download for other users as well, provided they want to eat healthy and stay in shape.

"The Bing Health & Fitness app helps you stay on top of health and fitness trends and provides the tools you need to support a healthy lifestyle. Designed for Windows Phone, the Health & Fitness app brings together great fitness, nutrition and health content, along with trackers, tools and other features", says the app's description. Now let's take a look at its features.

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NTWind Software has released WinSnap 4.5, a major new build of its Windows screen capture and post-processing tool. Version 4.5 debuts a completely redesigned and updated user interface, plus adds a host of new tools, including new presets and quick preferences and a number of new drawing tools.

The new release also promises improved support for the most recent Windows 8 Aero theme, plus the usual gamut of tweaks and bug fixes.

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Many people say we’re now living in a "post-PC world". The desktop is dead, they claim, or at least on the way out, while touch is the future. And all this might suggest that command line tools are entirely irrelevant, and best forgotten.

If you need to automate PC tasks, though, for yourself or others, then a little command line knowledge can still save you a vast amount of time. Especially if you extend the regular DOS commands with the cross-platform Swiss File Knife.

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Tech news changed last week faster than the weather. At the beginning of the week Charter Communications was trying to buy Time-Warner Cable, then on Tuesday Apple was rumored to be close to a deal for Apple TV to replace or augment Time-Warner’s cable boxes, then on Thursday both stories crashed and burned when Comcast bought TWC out from under Charter, killing the Apple deal in the process. But does it really have to end that way? Not if Apple is smart.

I don’t care about cable consolidation, frankly, though a lot of other people do, seeing too much power being concentrated in Comcast. I would just like to see things shaken up in the TV industry bumping services quickly forward to where I’ll only have to pay for the stuff I actually want to watch. I suspect that’s where the Apple-TWC deal was heading. Apple would pay TWC for the privilege of taking over a substantial part of the cable company’s workload, cutting costs and raising TWC profits in the process. It was a desperate attempt on TWC’s part to avoid the clutches of John Malone’s Charter Communications.

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The world of social media has exploded -- there are countless sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus to name a few. One problem with these sites, is that they are not focused. In other words, they exist to encapsulate all topics. That is good and sometimes better, but some people may prefer a network that is dedicated to one topic. After all, if you are passionate about one thing, everything else can be noise.

This is particularly true of chefs -- they are passionate people that dedicate themselves to preparing, cooking and presenting their dishes. While a site like Facebook could store pictures of meals and cooking techniques, there is a good chance that it will be lost among the sea of cat videos and chain letters. And so, Chef's Roll has been born.

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China arguably makes the technology world go around. While the United States and other countries are a source of popular ideas, the manufacturing and production implementation of those ideas often happens in China. And so, the country is a very important economy in which to prosper and grow.

The Chinese people have taken favor to an unlikely operating system, Ubuntu Kylin, which Canonical calls "a version of Ubuntu optimized for them". In other words, Linux is gaining ground in the most populous country in the world -- the People's Republic of China.

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Google is delving into its wallet once again, fishing out a little cash and going on a spending spree. This time around, it is Israeli startup SlickLogin that is being put in the shopping cart. You may not have heard of the company, and that’s because its services haven't even launched yet, but it is looking to revolutionize two-factor authentication. Additional layers of security are being added by every website worth its salt, and SlickLogin has an interesting alternative to the traditional password.

Like many other two-factor security systems, this makes use of smartphones -- but in a somewhat different way. Rather than generating a unique code that is emailed out and needs to be typed into a website, SlickLogin is audio-based. A unique sound is generated and played through a computer's speakers. So far, so weird. To make things more interesting, and probably more secure, the sound is inaudible thanks to being ultra-sonic, and an app on a smartphone placed near the speaker picks up the sound and completes the authentication process.

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It seems to be hacking season at the moment, with new high profile victims hitting the headlines just about every day. The latest target is Kickstarter. The website, which exists to help projects raise the funds they need to get off the ground, was hacked on Wednesday, but details of the attack -- along with an apology -- have only just been made public. If you're wondering why is has taken so many days for Kickstarter to speak out, the company has pre-empted your question and supplied a FAQ: "We immediately closed the breach and notified everyone as soon we had thoroughly investigated the situation".

In a statement on the Kickstarter website CEO Yancey Strickler explained that the company had been contacted by law enforcement officials and alerted to the activity of hackers. It's not clear what users are likely to find more alarming, the fact that the site was hacked in the first place, or the fact that it was not Kickstarter that noticed, but a third party.

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The Seattle Seahawks overwhelming victory in this year's Super Bowl may now be a memory, but the ads certainly live on. Those that debuted during the big game continue to run during our daily TV shows, and Google's video service has been polling viewers to get a feel for what really came out on top that Sunday.

While everyone likely had a personal favorite, there was a consensus amongst the masses, and the company has unveiled its top five from the NFL championship.

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WindowsX has updated both of its skinning tools, Windows 8 UX Pack 8.0 for PCs running Windows 7, and Windows 8 Transformation Pack 8.0 for earlier versions of Windows, including XP.

The latest version of the tools, which aim to give users the Windows 8 look and feel in earlier versions of Windows, have been updated to better reflect the changes introduced in Windows 8.1 as well as provide a number of other tweaks and bug fixes.

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It is usually Bill Gates who is heralded for his philanthropy, but according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, it is Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg who is currently the most generous. In another change from the norm, malware threats to OS X, Linux and Android have increased, showing it is not just Windows that is prone to attack. As if to prove this, Mac malware has been discovered that has been designed to steal Bitcoins from victims. Factor in all of Apple's devices and the company managed to sell more units than Windows PCs are sold, although this revelation caused quite some debate.

Twitter found itself in the headlines after the James Dean estate tried to gain control of a fan's James Dean-related account. Twitter has already spoken out about the shackles binding companies from being open about government data requests -- companies are practically falling over themselves to add their names to the list -- and Dropbox is in agreement. The European Commission has expressed a desire to wrestle some control of the internet from US hands voicing fears that too much influence was being exerted,

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Adobe’s open source code editor Brackets has received an update to Sprint 36, adding some significant new features.

Smart file watchers mean the editor and Project tree now recognize when files are modified outside of Brackets, and update automatically. You’re always looking at the latest state of your project, no manual refresh required.

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Ubuntu is a wildly popular Linux distribution. Heck, it is probably the most well known distro. However, it is also based on Debian. While Canonical undoubtedly puts a lot of work into its operating system, many of the components are developed by others, including the Debian and Gnome communities -- it is a team effort.

Canonical has not exactly been a team player. If you recall, last year the company announced it was not using the Wayland display server in support of its own, called Mir. This angered many in the Linux community. With that said, Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical founder, shocks the open-source world by conceding in his fight against systemd. Yes, he announces that Ubuntu will abandon upstart as a result of systemd being selected by the Debian technical committee.

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Leave a PC unattended for a while and the standard lock screen keeps it reasonably safe. Press Win+L, the lock screen appears, and only someone who knows your password will be able to restore the desktop.

This is simple, straightforward, and easy to use. It's not particularly configurable, though, so if you need more control then you might prefer ScreenBlur.

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Laplink Software has released Laplink Sync for iOS 7.0, the latest release in Laplink's new Sync family, a collection of tools designed to allow users to manually sync media and other files across multiple platforms.

The app allows users to sync photos and videos between iPads, iPhones and iPod touches, and -- for an extra fee -- can also be used to sync with Android mobiles and Windows PCs running Laplink Sync for desktop. A Mac version is currently in development.

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