Wayne Williams

Apple-news-plus

Apple unveils Apple News+, its monthly news subscription service

At a special event at its Cupertino campus, Apple today lifted the wraps of its revamped Apple News app, which comes with a new premium subscription service called Apple News+. This offers readers access to over 300 magazines and newspapers for a flat rate of $9.99 a month.

Available in the US and Canada to begin with, publications offered by Apple News+ include Vogue, National Geographic, People, ELLE, The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.

By Wayne Williams -
Apple store sign

Watch Apple unveil its new TV and news subscription services

Apple had a pretty busy week last week, unveiling new iPads, new iMacs, and updated AirPods.

Today things get even busier for the tech giant as it’s holding a special keynote at its Cupertino campus where it is expected to unveil several new services, including one that aims to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

By Wayne Williams -
Win10 Thumbs-up laptop

Build 18362 looks to be the Windows 10 1903 Release Candidate

Although it’s a bit of a meaningless term these days, it looks as if 19H1 Build 18362, which was released to the Fast ring on Wednesday and is now making its way on to the Slow ring today, could well be the Release Candidate for the next big feature update of Windows 10.

The new release, due out next month, has the unenviable task of following the disastrous October 2018 Update, and Microsoft will hoping things run a lot smoother this time around, especially as the previous update only began its full rollout yesterday.

By Wayne Williams -
Bored party

Windows 10 October 2018 Update finally starts to roll out to all

Although the Windows 10 October 2018 Update did arrive in October 2018, it came with lots of problems, and Microsoft was forced to pull it, reissuing a slightly less buggy version in November.

Despite this, the actual phased rollout didn’t start in January, and even so uptake was very slow. Yesterday, however, Microsoft finally flipped the switch to begin automatic updates, but there are still some users who won’t be offered it.

By Wayne Williams -
Microsoft Defender for Mac

Microsoft brings its Windows Defender antivirus software to Mac

In February, Microsoft announced Microsoft Threat Experts, a new service within Microsoft 365 Security designed to better protect businesses.

Today, the software giant extends its endpoint protection platform to Mac, and in keeping with that move renames the Windows Defender ATP platform to Microsoft Defender ATP.

By Wayne Williams -
Win10 keys

Microsoft releases Windows 10 19H1 Build 18362 and 20H1 Build 18860

Yesterday, Microsoft rolled out Windows 10 19H1 Build 18361 to the Fast ring, and today it follows that up with Build 18362 which fixes a couple of problems.

In addition, the software giant has released Build 18860 for the 20H1 branch of Windows 10, which is planned for release early next year.

By Wayne Williams -
Shocked PC user

New 'Get Windows 10' nag screen arrives in Windows 7

When it was revealed a week ago that Microsoft would once again start nagging Windows 7 users into upgrading to Windows 10, there was a collective sigh of annoyance from devotees of the older OS who have lived through this sort of thing before.

This time though, Microsoft appears to have learned its lesson. Not only does the software giant have a valid reason for the popup notifications -- Windows 7 is nearing the end of its life -- but these alerts are optional, and gentler -- there’s no being tricked into upgrading to Windows 10 this time around (at least not yet).

By Wayne Williams -
Airpods

Apple's updated AirPods offer better performance and hands-free 'Hey Siri'

Apple’s AirPods are quite funny looking things, especially when being worn, but despite this the iPhone maker's wireless headphones have proven to be wildly popular.

Following on from rolling out new iPads and refreshing its iMac range earlier in the week, Apple today announces the second generation of its AirPods with a new Apple-designed H1 chip that promises better performance, faster connections, and up to 50 percent more talk time.

By Wayne Williams -
Windows-10 key

Microsoft releases Windows 10 19H1 Build 18361 to the Fast ring

It’s Tuesday, so that means Microsoft is rolling out a new Windows 10 build for Insiders on the Fast ring.

We’re edging ever closer to the next big feature update’s release next month, so Build 18361 is all about fixing problems and making general improvements.

By Wayne Williams -
kodi_motherboard

The Kodi Foundation DOES NOT MAKE HARDWARE!

Do you own a Kodi box? The open source home theater software runs on all manner of hardware, from Windows, Mac and Linux systems, to Kodi boxes and the Amazon Fire TV Stick.

All of the many devices running Kodi have one thing in common though -- they aren’t official Kodi products, and they haven’t been made or licensed by the Kodi Foundation.

By Wayne Williams -
Kodi linux

The Kodi Foundation joins the Linux Foundation

The Kodi Foundation has long been a supporter of open source software and today the developer announces that it has joined the Linux Foundation as an Associate Member.

The Linux Foundation is a non-profit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux and open source in general, and providing support for the open source community as well as sponsoring Linux creator Linus Torvalds, and maintaining the linux.com website.

By Wayne Williams -
GDC

Watch Google's big gaming announcement here, live

Google will be holding a keynote at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco shortly, where it is widely expected that the search giant will take the wraps off its new cloud gaming platform.

Google says it will be revealing its "vision for the future of gaming" at the event and you can watch the announcement here, live, as it unfolds.

By Wayne Williams -
iPad Mini hero

Apple launches surprise all-new iPad Air and iPad mini

Apple’s online store partially closed down earlier today, suggesting new products were about to be released, even though no one was really expecting anything, given there’s a big Apple event happening next week.

It turns out that Apple does indeed have new hardware to share -- refreshed versions of both its 10.5-inch iPad Air and the 7.9-inch iPad mini.

By Wayne Williams -
windows Defender app guard

New Windows Defender Application Guard add-ons for Chrome and Firefox open untrusted sites in Microsoft Edge

If you attempt to visit a bad site in Firefox or Chrome, your browser will often warn you, so you can decide whether or not to take the risk and continue to your destination.

Microsoft has joined the fight to prevent users unwittingly visiting bad sites by creating new extensions for Google and Mozilla’s browsers which automatically redirect users from untrusted sites to Windows Defender Application Guard for Microsoft Edge.

By Wayne Williams -
Windows-10 key

Microsoft releases Windows 10 19H1 Build 18358 to the Fast ring

As we enter the final stretch for the next big feature update of Windows 10, Microsoft is rolling out new builds for Insiders to test at a much faster rate.

The latest new flight, the second of the week, is Build 18358, and as you’d expect the focus now is on fixing bugs and improving the user experience.

By Wayne Williams -

© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved.