Sony rolling out new update to your PS4, here's what you get
The Sony PS4 is seemingly doing well in its head-to-head battle with Microsoft's Xbox One. But that doesn't mean the company can just rest -- snooze and you could fall behind to a competitor that is updating often and at a quick pace. Sony isn't sleeping though, today announcing an update that will be coming to your box very soon.
The update is codenamed "Yukimura" (yes, I had to look it up as well and it's still vague -- we'll go with the Samurai by that name since it sounds cool). Name aside, what's important is features, and Sony promises a number of them.
Microsoft signs letter to congress calling for changes to government surveillance
Microsoft has teamed up with the likes of Mozilla, Silent Circle, Human Rights Watch, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others, signing a letter to the White House and Congressional leaders that calls for an end to bulk collection of data. Many people and organizations have called for reform to the USA Patriot Act and this letter is the latest attempt to pile pressure on the government to make changes.
Scores of signatories point out that the USA PATRIOT Act Section 215 is due to expire in June, and now is the time to instigate reform. A call is made for greater privacy protection to be put in place when data is collected, as well as for improvements in transparency.
Colorblinding shows how websites look to the color blind
You can spend a very long time choosing your website color scheme, finding a starting shade, then a matching palette, shuffling and rearranging until you find something that appeals.
This isn’t all about you, though -- it’s also vital to understand how your design will be seen by anyone with a color vision deficiency.
Half of all Android users vulnerable to year-old security flaw
Half of all Android users are still vulnerable to a security flaw uncovered in the most-popular mobile operating system early last year, according to a new report from security firm Palo Alto Networks. The vulnerability in question allows an attacker to modify or replace Android apps with malware without the user's knowledge.
Google was informed of the vulnerability in February 2014, a month after its discovery, and has since come up with a patch, which it has included in later revisions of Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and newer distributions. According to the latest data from Google, that still leaves 49.9 percent of all Android users unprotected.
How to install Windows 10 March Build (10041) on Oracle VirtualBox
Microsoft has just released ISO files for latest build of Windows 10 Technical Preview. There aren’t a massive amount of new features in Build 10041, although the Start menu gains transparency, you can drag and drop apps to Start, virtual desktops have been improved, and Cortana is now available in countries outside the US.
As with the previous releases, Build 10041 is still a very early version of the OS, so you wouldn’t be advised to run it as your main operating system, and while you could set it to dual boot, running it in a virtualized environment is probably a more sensible idea.
Microsoft makes an investment in the youth of Vietnam
The youth is obviously always the future and today's tech companies have good reason to invest in that, given a seeming shortage of necessary people to fill positions. Microsoft is just one company looking to help fill that void by providing resources to get kids started on the right path, regardless if it's with them or somewhere else.
The software giant has a global program it calls YouthSpark which aims to provide education and employment for the future of the young folks around the world. The latest move is a three million dollar investment, spread over three years, to help out in Vietnam.
Facebook apes TimeHop with On This Day
History. It's so much more reliable than the future. You know where you stand with things that have happened. This is possibly why they are often looked back upon (is that not the only way to view such things?) with such fondness. Unless they were bad things, of course.
Latching on to the general liking for getting moist-eyed and nostalgic, Facebook is rolling out a new On This Day. It's something that borrows heavily from services like TimeHop, and gives users of the social network a new way to check back on the content they've posted. It's something Facebook has experimented with already with its Year In Review, but this is a more wide-reaching feature.
PhotoDemon gains RAW support, more selection tools
Tanner Helland has announced the release of PhotoDemon 6.6, his open source photo editor for Windows.
The lengthy list of major new features starts with powerful Magic Wand, Polygon and Lasso selection tools.
Windows 10: Smooth user experience it ain't
Despite months of work, Windows 10 still falls a long way short of what it should be by now. Based on the last time I wrote about Windows 10 in a less than positive way, I'm not expecting great feedback on what I'm about to write. Of course, there is the caveat that we're all using a pre-release version of the operating system and problems are to be expected, but that’s not really the point.
The point is that Microsoft has been working on Windows 10 for quite some time now. Public builds have been a little slow to creep out -- despite promises that things would speed up -- but I'm concerned about how little time there is until the planned release. While there's a lot that right with Windows 10, there's an awful lot that's still very, very wrong.
Software vulnerabilities up 18 percent in 2014 and Microsoft isn't to blame
Errors in software, whether operating systems or applications, are usually the root cause of security issues, allowing hackers and cyber criminals a way in to systems.
In 2014, 15,435 vulnerabilities across 3,870 applications were discovered according to a new report from vulnerability intelligence specialist Secunia. That represents an 18 percent increase in vulnerabilities compared to the year before, and a 22 percent increase in the number of vulnerable products.
Download the ISO image of Windows 10 Build 10041 directly from Microsoft
When Microsoft released the latest build of Windows 10 Technical Preview it only made it available to Windows Insiders on the Fast ring, and only through Windows Update. It has now made it available to those on the Slow ring too, which means there are now official ISO files to download.
If you need to perform a brand new install -- either on a spare PC, or to run in a virtualized environment -- then grabbing the ISO image file is the easiest, not to mention quickest option.
Google Glass is far from dead
If you thought Google Glass was dead, well, it isn’t – the big G still has plans for its wearable, even though the Explorer Program was shelved earlier this year, and any consumer plans seemed to ditch in flames with this move.
However, Google’s outspoken Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, has been talking to the Wall Street Journal and saying that Glass is far from lying shattered on the floor.
The truth is out there -- Mulder and Scully make a comeback as Fox brings back X-Files
It's been far too long since we've visited with agents Mulder and Scully to see what sort of evidence they've turned up in their hunt for the truth about all sorts of crazy events. Fortunately we get to check in again, more than ten years later, to see what clues have come to light. It's hard to say how much has changed in the ensuing years, but surely things must be different from the days of Cigarette Smoking Man and the rest.
We'll find out soon as Fox has ordered up a six episode run of the classic series. Little is known at this point, but David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, however, are slated to reprise their roles as the alien-hunting, crime-solving, paranormal-investigating duo that we all loved in those dim, dark days of the 90's.
Microsoft decides sub-10.1 inch devices just aren't professional
You've probably heard that size matters, and Microsoft agrees. If you're carrying about a mobile device that measures 10.1 inches or less, the chances are you're not using a "professional" device -- at least this is what Microsoft believes.
10.1 inches, 256.54 millimetres, 25.654 centimetres; this is the new dividing line between what is classed as a personal device, and which is professional. This is interesting to know, but what does it actually mean? For starters, if you fall into the "personal" category, you're entitled to a free copy of Office.
Project Spartan and IE will no longer share rendering engines in Windows 10
It is now a couple of months since Microsoft started talking about Project Spartan, the Internet Explorer successor that's set to become Windows 10's default web browser. Some have suggested that this will lead to the death of Internet Explorer, but today Microsoft confirmed that the two browsers will live on side by side in Windows 10.
At the Project Spartan Developer Workshop, Microsoft went into more detail about the future of the two web browsers. In particular, there is the revelation that previous plans to use a new rendering engine in both Internet Explorer 11 and Project Spartan have been ditched. Internet Explorer will live on in Windows 10, providing legacy support for those who need it, and it will be virtually identical to the version found in Windows 8.1.
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.