Latest Technology News

After the slightly disappointing launch of Windows 10 -- at least in terms of reception, if not in terms of numbers (well, it was free) -- Microsoft is now switching its focus to Windows 10 Mobile. The aim now is to try to capture Android and iPhone users, convincing them that a Windows-based smartphone is a smart move.

But there's the problem of apps. It's something that crops up time and time again. Microsoft simply doesn't have the support of mobile developers in the same way that other platforms do. Not that Microsoft would admit this of course. To try to convince people that the 'app gap' no longer exists, the company has released AppComparison for Android to show off how many of the apps you use are available for Windows 10 Mobile. The problem is, there are still lots that simply don't exist.

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The Internet of Things, or IoT, is the latest rage with more products coming onto the market all the time. It's also become a bit of a target for hacking, though the problem is likely a bit exaggerated. We've recently looked at one of the newest offerings on the market from startup MivaTek, many other players are on the field and one of those is Samsung.

Samsung now has a line it calls SmartThings and it includes an array of products such as outlets, water sensors, security and much more.

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Yahoo has sparked controversy by preventing some users from accessing their email accounts if they have an ad blocker installed. It's something that seems to be restricted to the US at the moment, and Yahoo says it is testing out the block on a "small number of Yahoo Mail users".

Edward Snowden recently said that people have a duty to use an ad blocker, and it seems that nearly 20 percent of web users have followed his advice. Just like Google, Yahoo makes a large proportion of its income through advertising, but affected Yahoo Mail users feel that the company is holding their email accounts to ransom.

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Because I have a super-fast PC with a large SSD as the system drive, Windows 10 boots up really quickly for me. The days of waiting 5 minutes or so for Windows to get to a usable state -- as was sometimes the case in the past -- are long gone, thankfully.

But if you find Windows 10 is taking too long to boot up for you, there’s a setting you can apply which can speed things up significantly. Even if you have no complaints with how quickly Windows 10 loads, it’s still worth applying this (if it isn't on already) because it will make a difference.

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The Dyreza banking trojan has (unfortunately) been updated, and now can target users sporting Windows 10 and its internet browser, Microsoft Edge.

The new version of the banking trojan was spotted and analyzed by EU-based security firm Heimdal Security, which claims that Dyreza will now also seek and find security products, terminating their underlying OS processes.

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Windows 10 is arguably a success. True, not everyone loves it, but many -- according to Microsoft -- have downloaded it. A huge benefit of having large adoption of the latest version of Microsoft's operating system, is that more people have access to the Windows Store. As a result, more and more quality apps, games, and other content should be made available in it.

To celebrate Windows 10, Microsoft is doing something incredible for its fans. Over the next ten days, the company will be selling music, games, movies, and apps for ten cents each. Yes, for a single dime, you can score some awesome stuff. Heck, you can't get much for such a little amount, nowadays.

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Since the launch of Windows 10, there have been various concerns relating to privacy. Some would dismiss this as little more than paranoia, but a lack of transparency about what was happening in the background broke a lot of people's trust. Many hoped that the release of the Threshold 2 update this month would address this, but in lots of cases it was actually a backward step.

In the RTM release of Windows 10, there was a service running in the background called Diagnostics Tracking Service (also known as DiagTrack), and people concerned about privacy -- who were in the know -- disabled it. In Threshold 2, this service is gone. A cause for celebration you might think; but think again. The service is still there, just under a different guise.

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One-hundred and fifty-five in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 in the past seven days.

Microsoft's 10 days of $0.10 apps promotion on Windows Store lets you to snag apps, games, movies and music for $0.10 each (movies are rental only). Offers change each day. This is a great promotion by Microsoft.

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Exploit acquisition platform Zerodium has just published a price chart for different classes of digital intrusion techniques and software targets that it buys from hackers and later resells in a subscription service to its clients.

This is important as it is the first time someone has publically put a price tag on hacking.

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Hacktivist group Anonymous, which has recently declared "war" on ISIS, has released a guide on how to find and take out ISIS-related websites and social media accounts.

The group posted three different guides, to be used within #OpParis, the online campaign against the Middle-Eastern militants.

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When faced with the chance of clinching a major deal people are willing to throw security controls out of the window.

This is according to research by contextual security company Balabit which asked over 380 European IT executives, CIOs, CISOs, auditors and other IT professionals about their thoughts on IT security and business flexibility.

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With the level of excitement that surrounded the launch of the iPad Pro, it would be reasonable to expect sales to be high. They're not. Adoption of this particular model are the slowest for any iPad version yet.

It may only be a week since launch, but Apple would almost certainly be hoping that the new Pro version of its tablet would have captured more than 0.3 percent of the iPad market. Not even the tablet market, just iPads. Experts suggest that part of the reason for this is confusion about who the iPad Pro is aimed at.

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After five years of stop-start development, 7-Zip has just released a new stable version 15.12.

It’s been a long wait, but if you’re still using the latest stable build -- 9.20 -- then there are plenty of reasons to upgrade.

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Selecting the best colors is a key part of any graphic design project, yet most color pickers only display your chosen shades in tiny boxes.

Colortypist is a portable Windows freebie which allows you type color names or codes and displays them full-screen, in real time.

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I first started using Windows back in 1992, shortly after the release of Windows 3.1, and I’ve used every iteration since, including both the good (Windows XP, Windows 7) and the bad (Vista, Windows 8). Every time a new version was released, I upgraded pretty much immediately. I might own various Apple devices, and dip into Linux products from time to time, but for me there will only ever be one desktop operating system of worth, and that’s Windows.

Today is a huge milestone for the operating system that popularized home computing, and changed the world in so many ways. Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released on 20th November 1985, two years after it was first announced, and for the first time PC owners were able to control things using a mouse, rather than just typing in commands in DOS.

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