Alan Buckingham

If you're an advanced user utilizing Adobe products then you likely know the inherent perils of some of the company's platforms. Adobe has gone as far as to instigate its own version of Patch Tuesday, and that will be rolling around in just a few days.

It's aimed at fixing critical flaws in Acrobat and Reader across both the Windows and Apple platforms. These aren't new offenders, as Adobe software has been plagued by problems for sometime now. However, like Windows, it's partially because it's a major target -- the majority of people use Reader for opening PDFs, despite there being very good alternatives available.

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Microsoft is doing its best to push its line of Surface products out there to businesses and students, even getting prominent placement in NFL games (though announcers still sometimes refer to them as iPads). The Surface Pro is on its 4th generation, but for those who don't need quite as much power, there's the Surface 3 which has a smaller screen and isn't as capable, but which costs a fraction of the price of its bigger siblings and still runs Windows 10.

It's perfect for education uses, which is why Western Sydney University in Australia is handing out 5,000 Surface 3 slates to its students.

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Whole-home audio has become popular recently thanks to products like Sonos making it easy. In the old days speaker wires had to be fished through walls, but those days of cables and intense labor are gone. Now it can be done via a wireless means and almost everyone has a home network -- something else that was once the domain of geeks and experts.

Now one of the top-tier makers of home audio equipment is getting in on the act as Harman Kardon announces its newest offering at the Consumer Electronics Show taking place this week in Las Vegas.

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Amazon Echo continues to add features of all sorts. There's now integration with IFTTT, sports news and a growing number of home automation capabilities. The latest company to announce its plans with the Amazon device is Nexia.

The company is unveiling its latest products and integrations this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

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Netflix, which began life as a DVD by mail service that took off, has been slowly expanding to countries not named the US. The growth speaks well for the business model and the company has long since left DVDs behind in favor of online streaming. That makes for easier expansion into new markets.

Today the company is announcing it is expanding to pretty much all markets. We'd list them here, but with more than 190 countries it would be tedious for you and us. That's 130 nations that previously did not have Netflix.

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Ultra HD is the latest technology in televisions after the failure of 3D to get traction. Different manufacturers are using varying operating systems to power the sets and make them smart TVs. Roku is getting a foothold in this market and Opera is used quite a bit. Mozilla is in the game also.

Panasonic, one of the more popular television OEMs, is announcing that Firefox OS will power its new UHD offerings. This isn't entirely new as Panasonic has previously used the platform on some of its sets available around the world.

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The smartwatch, wearables in general for that matter, are big these days. The technology dates back quite some time, but popularity and mainstream acceptance are more recent. Android Wear is a big part of that, as Google created a platform for electronics makers to work with and many have responded with offerings.

The latest device you may want to grace your wrist is from Casio, known as the Smart Outdoor Watch, though the real name is the WSD-F10.

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It may be time for the Consumer Electronics Show, but Microsoft no longer maintains a presence at the big event. The days of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer keynotes are long gone now. That does not mean the company has nothing to announce, though.

Today Larry Hryb, also known as Major Nelson and the head of Xbox Live, is unveiling a set of new bundles for the gaming console.

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There's already a lot of noise coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, even though the actual event hasn't yet begun. It seems almost every company will have at least some sort of representation present in Sin City.

Set-top box maker Roku will be there to unveil its plans for 2016. The company claims it has grown its smart TV market from zero to eight percent this past year.

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These days almost everything is online thanks to the internet of things. That can, of course, be good since it allows you to control and monitor devices from wherever you are. It can also be a problem as we've seen. Sometimes the security of these devices is a bit lacking. I fully expect that one day one of my colleagues here will turn off my lights just because he can.

A bigger problem arises when the security weakness is actually your home security system. That seems to be the case with Texecom as UK-based security researcher Luca Lo Castro found out when he purchased the system.

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Software vulnerabilities are a daily event it seems, but some systems just have more of them. When we think of this a couple of names usually spring to mind -- Flash and Java. However, according to the new list being published by CVE Details, they aren't quite at the top, nor is Microsoft's oft-maligned operating system.

Basing its numbers on "distinct" vulnerabilities, the security firm has released its top 50 naughty list of 2015. Leading the way was, in fact, Apple, which claimed the top two spots -- Mac OS X with a number of 384 vulnerabilities, closely followed by iPhone OS (or iOS as most people like to call it) with 375.

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It's 2016 now -- time seems to fly. On New Year's Eve many revelers around the world gathered in various locations including Sydney, London, Rio de Janeiro and New York City. Times Square gets a prominent eye in the US and, to a certain extent, the world over.

This year the sponsor of the big show was Toshiba and during the process of bringing all of the festivities together for ringing in the new year it made a short video documentary.

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It's been another long year, with technology products appearing at a seemingly accelerated rate. It all began back in January at the Consumer Electronics Show, a spectacle that is now right around the corner once again.

With 2016 looming it is a time for some introspection -- what products made your year special? For me there were a few that I really enjoyed. It was typical year filled with a few good items and some worth forgetting.

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A week ago the Beatles came to streaming services, bringing the massive music catalog to a whole new generation. We've already learned of the popularity of this major launch as Spotify has released some numbers and the streams and ages of listeners were surprising.

The Fab Four also landed on other services as well, and one of those was Amazon Prime. With all of the cool features people often forget and Amazon Echo is also a very good speaker.

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The Internet of Things is the hot buzz-phrase right now and Samsung has an iron in the fire with SmartThings. Its line of products is also compatible with those made by other manufacturers -- that's the biggest catch with all of this, as not everything is compatible with all competing products.

Now Samsung is bringing its SmartThings platform to its own line of TVs and all 2016 models will offer built-in compatibility. This allows for control of your home right from the screen in your living room, or wherever you may have the product.

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