Roku announces new media streaming boxes, cuts the price of Roku Ultra, releases Roku OS 8
Roku has today unveiled the latest additions to its media streaming line-up, adding features such as voice control and 4K support. The company also slashes $30 off the price of its top-of-the-range Roku Ultra box.
With prices starting at just $29.99 for the Roku Express, there's something to suit every pocket, but it's arguably the updated Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick+ that are the most interesting.
Compuware brings mainframe development to the cloud
Many larger enterprises still rely on older, legacy systems developed in COBOL that don’t lend themselves to the latest Agile and DevOps development techniques.
Mainframe development specialist Compuware is deploying its Topaz flagship solution for mainframe Agile/DevOps on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This gives cloud access to modern mainframe development, enabling enterprises to deploy agile tools for COBOL and other legacy code bases fast.
Windows 10 will overtake Windows 7... but when?
Each month, NetMarketShare reports on the state of the desktop operating system market. Its numbers are often interesting, and occasionally initially wrong (this month, for example, they showed a sizeable growth for Linux, before being corrected).
The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is due to begin rolling out this month (even though over a third of users still don’t have the Creators Update), and Microsoft will be hoping this big new feature release will give its operating system a major boost. But how is Windows 10 doing at the moment, and when will it finally overtake Windows 7? Read on to find out.
FBI won't have to reveal details of hacking tool used to crack San Bernardino iPhone
A judge has ruled that the FBI will not have to reveal any details about the hacking tool it bought to crack the iPhone at the center of the San Bernardino shooting case back in early 2016.
Following a Freedom of Information request by Vice News, USA Today and the Associated Press, federal judge Tanya Chutkan ruled in favor of the FBI, meaning that the agency will be able to keep this information secret.
Apple releases source code for ARM-optimized iOS and macOS kernel
For some time now, Apple has regularly released the source code for the shared iOS and macOS kernel. That the company has done so again might not be news, but Apple has, for the first time, released the source code for the ARM versions of the kernel.
Pushed to GitHub, the source code gives anyone who likes the idea of seeing exactly what makes iOS and macOS tick the opportunity to do just that.
Google changes its approach to news subscriptions, scraps First Click Free policy
Google has announced changes to the requirements it places on websites that provide news on a subscription basis. With a large number of news sites locking content away behind a paywall, Google had required publishers to provide people with access to three free articles per day or face demotion in search results.
Scrapping what was known as the First Click Free Policy, Google is dropping any such requirement to provide free access to content. A new approach -- Flexible Sampling -- lets publishers decide how many, if any, free articles they provide.
Amazon Echo owners can now make free phone calls in US, Mexico and Canada
Amazon has been gradually expanding its range of Echo devices, and it has been possible to make free calls between Alexa-enabled devices for a few months -- now Amazon is extending the free calling capability even further.
Owners of any Amazon Echo device -- not just the latest batch -- can now make free calls to phones in the US, Mexico and Canada. No extra hardware or software is needed to take advantage of free calling.
Nintendo bans YouTubers from live streaming games through Nintendo Creators Program
Nintendo has updated the terms of the Nintendo Creators Program so that members are no longer permitted to live stream games on YouTube. The program has been running since 2015, giving gamers the chance to earn a little ad revenue from videos featuring Nintendo games.
The change does not mean that gamers are not able to feature Nintendo games in their YouTube videos, but live streaming of game walkthroughs or other streams of gameplay are not allowed any more.
Google reveals why it killed NFC Smart Lock in Android
It recently came to light that Google had killed off NFC Smart Lock in Android -- without telling anyone. Now the company has come clean about just why the feature was given the chop.
Google says that "in the case of NFC unlock, we've seen extremely low usage," adding that there are now many more ways of unlocking Android devices. But while Google points to features such as On-Body detection, fingerprint scanning and Trusted Places, fans of the missing feature say that none of these are comparable.
Microsoft explains why Edge has so few extensions a year down the line
It's now a little more than a year since Microsoft first brought extensions to Edge. After so long you would expect the selection of addons to be overwhelming -- but that's far from being the case. In all, there are only 70-odd Edge extensions available, and Microsoft has been moved to explain why.
In a blog post, the company almost apologetically explains that it is "building a thoughtfully curated ecosystem," citing concern over quality and a fear of diminishing the user experience. What some might describe as "slow," Microsoft refers to as a "purposefully metered approach" to new extensions, and you probably shouldn't expect things to speed up a great deal any time soon.
Paint.NET hits version 4.0.18 and arrives in the Microsoft Store... for a price
Fans of the image editing tool Paint.NET have two big pieces of news to digest. While this is only a minor version number bump, Paint.NET 4.0.18 improves startup times by around 25 percent as well as improving portable mode and introducing per-user plugins.
But perhaps the biggest news -- as promised a few months ago -- is that Paint.NET is now in the Microsoft Store. While many people will welcome the arrival of the app in the Store, the fact that a price tag has been slapped on it will come as a surprise -- and a disappointment -- to some.
Ransomware is reaching 'epidemic levels'
Ransomware has been named as one of the most pressing threats to society by officers at Europol.
The force has released a new report which claims that ransomware is reaching "epidemic" levels, eclipsing other areas of cybercrime such as data breaches, pornography and card fraud.
Doogee BL7000 is an affordable smartphone with a huge battery and nice hardware [Review]
Chinese smartphone manufacturer Doogee seems to be on fire; the outfit, which is several orders of magnitude smaller than bigger names like Lenovo, Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi, has been pushing out new models like there’s no tomorrow. The vendor embraced a niche approach with the S-series (for secure), the BL series, the Mix (bezel-less), the Shoot series (for photography aficionados) and a few more.
After the Doogee Mix and the Doogee T5 and just before we review the S60 rugged smartphone, we’re taking a look at the BL7000 with the first two letters meaning "Battery Life" and 7000 representing the battery capacity (in mAh).
Kodi: EFF says courts should reject 'abusive' lawsuits against add-on distributors
The war against copyright infringement has always been a difficult one for rights holders. Aside from the scale of the problem, there are multiple platforms that make illegal downloads, streams, and sharing possible. For many years, the main target for anti-piracy bodies was BitTorrent, but in recent months a new number one enemy has surfaced in the form of Kodi, and in particular various companies and addons associated with the media center software.
While in Europe and the UK, sellers of "fully loaded" media center boxes seem to be the primary focus for Kodi-related lawsuits, in Canada and the US, it’s hosting site TVAddons and the ZemTV Kodi addon that are in the firing line. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was setup to "defend civil liberties in the digital world" and it has now weighed in on the Kodi situation, pointing out the shaky legal grounds these cases rest on.
Blockchain's usefulness extends beyond the financial market
Blockchain technology is a key disruption enabler of established and, most importantly, trusted broker industries -- financial services being the biggest and most lucrative trusted broker service in the world. Trillions of pounds are moved around the archaic global financial system every day and billions of businesses and private individuals are serviced by companies that make up the vast industry. Still heavily reliant on manual processes, though dressed in a digital façade, finance system productivity is anchored with process delays, ever-rising expenses and is a relentless target for crime and fraud.
In an attempt to solve these ever-growing issues, blockchain, originally developed as the technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, has been heavily invested in over the last few years. Investment to date has been primarily targeted at finance-focused blockchain start-ups and this focus of investment has lured many into the belief that the technology only has real potential in the world of finance.
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