Scholar

The Linux Foundation opens scholarship program -- will you apply?

Are you happy with your life? Maybe you are stuck in a dead-end job. Maybe you are unemployed and living on your mom's couch. Hell, maybe you just need to enhance your skills for your current job. You know you need to make a change, but you keep putting it off. What is a smart path to take?

Linux. Yes, careers involved in Linux are in high demand. Getting certified in some way is not only personally rewarding, but also improves your employment potential by bolstering your resume. If you do not have money for such a thing, I have good news -- you could get a scholarship from The Linux Foundation. In other words, you can get a free education and certification. Will you improve your life by applying?

By Brian Fagioli -
Surface Pro 3 with red Type Cover keyboard

Microsoft discounts Surface Pro 3 by up to $150

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 may be a year old at this stage, but it remains one of the best Windows 8.1 devices on the market. Touted as "the tablet that can replace your laptop", it works well in the office and on the go, thanks to a large touchscreen, powerful processors and long battery life.

And if you are interested in getting a Surface Pro 3 -- perhaps in time for Father's Day, as it would make an awesome gift -- then you should know that, for a limited time, Microsoft has discounts of up to $150 on the Intel Core i5 and Core i7 models.

By Mihăiță Bamburic -
Samsung_M3_dynamic_1000

Samsung's new 4TB portable hard drives are the thinnest and lightest in the world

Storing data on a portable hard drive means you’ll have access to it wherever you happen to be, and can connect the device to any computer. Of course you don’t want to be lugging around a heavy drive -- the lighter the better -- but neither do you want to be compromising on capacity.

Samsung HDD, a division of Seagate Technology, today announces two new 4TB external hard drives -- the M3 Portable and the P3 Portable -- which it says are the first 4TB USB-powered single drive solutions to come in 2.5in enclosures.

By Wayne Williams -
Data analytics

New analytics platform unlocks the value of unstructured information

Modern businesses invariably have access to lots of data, but deriving simple straightforward insights from that can be difficult, especially if it's stored across multiple applications or extracted from the web.

SaaS analytics provider FirstRain is unveiling a new analytics platform that lets enterprise customers deliver business-critical and actionable insights to departments, teams and individuals.

By Ian Barker -
evil_apple

Will editorial bias blight a curated Apple News?

There was a lot of Apple news to digest from WWDC last week. As well as the latest versions of OS X and iOS, we witnessed the appearance of women on stage as Apple tried to do its part for diversity. Apple would probably like us to focus on the likes of the Apple Music and Beats One launches, but really it's another announcement that should be foremost in our minds: Apple News.

On the face of it, this is a simple replacement -- perhaps even just a renaming -- for Newsstand, but it's really much more than that. The key difference here is that content will not only come from media partners, but will also be curated. Apple is now a news editor, and that's extremely dangerous.

Angry phone user

US consumers receive over 86 million scam phone calls per month

You might think that today's scammers spend most of their effort on the Internet, but a new report by call center authentication specialist Pindrop Security reveals that phone fraud is still big business.

More than 86.2 million calls per month to US consumers are down to scammers, and 36 million of those calls can be traced to one of the 25 most common phone scams. It also finds a 30 percent rise in enterprise attacks.

By Ian Barker -
AIDA64-200-175

AIDA64 brings in-depth system information to Android

It’s best known as one of the most powerful and detailed system information tools for Windows, but AIDA64 is also available as a free app which can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about your Android device.

And we do mean everything.

By Mike Williams -
Box for Office Online

Box now integrates with Office Online, following Dropbox's lead

Dropbox is no longer the only non-Microsoft cloud storage service that integrates with Office Online, as enterprise-focused rival Box now also makes this feature available to its customers, taking advantage of Office 365 -- Cloud Storage Partner Program. Box already integrates with Office mobile, allowing smartphone and tablet users to easily create and edit Excel, PowerPoint and Word documents that are stored on its servers.

It is a win-win for both companies. Box gets to give its customers easy access to one of the best online office suites around and become more attractive to potential customers, while Microsoft gains more Office Online, and potentially more Office 365, users in the process. Let's see what this integration brings to the table.

By Mihăiță Bamburic -
Game of Thrones Jon Snow

Game of Thrones season finale sets new piracy records

The season finale of Game of Thrones managed to break piracy records once again, despite HBO clamping down on pirates in Canada and the UK.

An estimated 1.5 million downloads of the tenth episode happened during the first eight hours, with a further five million since. It is expected to rise to over 10 million by the end of the week, as latecomers catch up.

By David Curry -
AMD2

NVIDIA who? AMD roars back with Radeon R9 Fury and R7/R9 300 series graphics cards

If you've built a gaming PC lately, there is a good chance that you purchased an NVIDIA graphics card and Intel processor, and that's OK. Both of those companies make great products. Unfortunately for AMD, consumers have been ignoring its products a bit lately. This is understandable, as the company's offerings -- while solid -- have not always delivered the same value as year's past.

This year, however, AMD has been roaring back to relevance and possibly dominance. It announced the value-focused A10-7870K APU and then the awesome 6th generation A-Series notebook processors. Today, the company continues on an upward trajectory as it announces the Radeon R9 Fury, Fury X, Fury Nano and the R9 and R7 300 Series graphics cards. All are DirectX 12 capable and Windows 10-ready. If you are a hardcore gamer, these are the cards you want.

By Brian Fagioli -
SSD storage

Flash is not the answer to your storage woes

In just ten years the percentage of virtualized workloads has grown from 2 percent to 75 percent. The rapid adoption of virtualization has created a disconnect in your data centre.

While your workloads are shifting to become virtual, your storage was built for a physical world. And so your storage is the source of growing costs, bottlenecks and frustration.

By Kieran Harty -
Xiaomi Mi 4 Windows 10

Microsoft rolls out Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 10136 to Fast Ring

There has been plenty of news about Windows 10 rolling out of Microsoft central in recent months, however the focus has been very much on the desktop version of the operating system. But, of course, Windows 10 is destined for a wide range of devices and today Microsoft starts the roll out of Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 10136 to testers who have joined the Fast Ring.

Unlike upgrading from preview builds on the desktop, there's a bit of a quirk with this mobile release. Microsoft is only making the upgrade available to handsets that are running Windows Phone 8.1 -- so if you have installed build 10080, you'll need to use the Windows Phone Recovery Tool to roll it back first. As well as new features and tweaks, there's also an important note to keep in mind.

5to9

Microsoft Lumia launches an uplifting 'good news' paper to inspire commuters

Most newspapers are full of bad, and depressing news. Microsoft Lumia wants to change that, and is putting together its own print newspaper that it hopes will inspire commuters and help them to "achieve more".

The Five to Nine newspaper will focus on positive, uplifting content, and also show workers how they can use technology to work smarter and more efficiently. There will be five editions, published between 22 June and 26 June, all focusing on a different theme (culture, music, fashion, design, and sport) and featuring commissioned content alongside crowd sourced "good news" stories, life hacks and musings.

By Wayne Williams -
twitter_video

Twitter apes Facebook with autoplaying videos

Videos that automatically play when they appear on screen are making their way to Twitter. Taking the lead from Facebook, the microblogging service is introducing the feature to reduce the need to click in order to watch a video.

It's something that will be loved and loathed in just about equal measure -- and if you fall into the latter camp, you'll be pleased to hear that it's possible to revert to the old click-to-play method. Twitter thinks that autoplay will help to ensure that you miss fewer videos about breaking news, but it remains to be seen just how popular it proves.

UE_ROLL_Pinata

Ultimate Ears unveils UE ROLL -- a round waterproof Bluetooth speaker

Another day, another Bluetooth speaker. With the market so flooded, it can be hard to get excited about them. Many people that want such a wireless speaker already own them, and those that do need to buy one can be overwhelmed by the choices.

Ultimate Ears has been selling some popular speakers such as the MINI BOOM, BOOM and MEGABOOM -- a great choice at multiple price points. In other words, the company has been on a roll lately. What better way to celebrate being on a roll, than to release a new round speaker called UE ROLL.

By Brian Fagioli -
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