Microsoft giving away gift cards if you'll buy a Windows 8/8.1 device for the holidays
The official holiday shopping season kicked off last week and reached full speed today with Cyber Monday. Like every year, Microsoft hopes to see a Windows product on everyone's wish list. This year the company is even planning to throw in a little something extra to sweeten the deal.
The software and services company is announcing that starting now, and running through December 28th, anyone who purchases a new touch PC or tablet is eligible for a shiny new gift card to go along with it. The card can be used to purchase any app or game in the Windows Store.
GIMP squashes more bugs, now works in OS X Mavericks
Popular open-source image-editing tool GIMP 2.8.10 FINAL has been released by the GIMP Development Team. The latest version of the cross-platform image editor includes a key fix that restores compatibility in OS X Mavericks, plus tweaks the Save/Export code to simplify both operations.
The new release is accompanied by the release of version 2.8.1 of the GIMP Manual, an online version of which can be accessed here.
TunnelBear offers an easier way to stay anonymous online
VPN software can be great for browsing anonymously, bypassing trackers, perhaps avoiding some web censorship. But it can also be awkward to set up, tricky to use, with all kinds of potential pitfalls and issues to consider.
TunnelBear is, fortunately, a little different. It’s a solid and reliable VPN service with all the functionality you need (and more, probably), but smart design means it also keeps any of the usual hassles to an absolute minimum.
Canon Facebook app lets you communicate with the real Santa Claus
Santa Claus lives in the North Pole, everyone knows this. However, he does sometimes visit shopping malls too. Kids have been writing letters to Santa for years, but let's face it, wasting all that paper is bad for the environment. Not to mention, there are many natural resources wasted when flying the letters to the North Pole. A huge carbon footprint.
Luckily, in 2013, Mr. Claus has apparently entered the digital world and now leverages social media. Even though underage children chatting with strange men on Facebook is normally frowned upon, Canon announces a new app that allows your children to do just that.
Over half of parents will put technology under the Christmas tree
According to a new survey by broadcaster PBS KIDS more than half of parents (54 percent) plan on buying technology gifts for their offspring this Christmas. That figure rises to 59 percent for younger, more tech savvy parents.
Top of the shopping list are tablets, featuring in 28 percent of parental intentions, with games consoles on only 18 percent. Combine tablet and smartphone purchasing intentions and 36 percent of parents will be buying.
Office 365 Student Advantage now on campus
Microsoft has been busy this year, working towards landing its Office 365 in the enterprise, government offices and educational institutions. The company announced its latest ploy back on October 15, aiming at any school that licenses Office 365 ProPlus or Office Professional Plus for its employees.
Today the program officially goes live, bringing Office 365 Student Advantage to thousands of educational institutions. Eligible locations will be able to begin offering Office 365 ProPlus to all students.
Banning bad reviews undermines the very purpose of reviews
In an interview with Poynter back at the beginning of November, BuzzFeed book editor Isaac Fitzgerald said that the site will not include negative reviews. "Why waste breath talking smack about something? You see it in so many old media-type places, the scathing takedown rip. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all". Is this the right attitude to adopt? I won't even pretend that this is a rhetorical question. It is absolutely the wrong attitude, and any publication that adopts it does both itself and its readers a disservice.
Of course, Fitzgerald was talking specifically about book reviews, but the danger is that other publications follow suit. His justification for this line of thinking is that people understand that authors "have worked incredibly hard, and they respect that. The overwhelming online books community is a positive place". But this is hardly a reason to avoid negative reviews. The fact that someone has worked hard on something in no way means that it is automatically worthy of praise.
SmartSystemMenu lets you set window size, transparency, and 'always on top'
SmartSystemMenu is a small, open-source tool which adds five useful functions to your application window system menu.
"Information" displays various details about the window and its process. Most are aimed at developers (Handle, Class, Style), but the Process tab presents the full path of its executable, handy when you need to know where it’s stored.
Internet Explorer retains its grip on desktop browsing
The latest month-by-month figures from NetMarketShare show that Internet Explorer continues to be the most popular desktop browser. Indeed Microsoft's browser has increased its lead by around three percent since January and now has a 58.36 percent share of the market.
Next most popular is Firefox on 18.54 percent, down just over two percent from its 2013 peak in May. Chrome comes next, having been only half a percent behind Firefox in July it's now on 15.44 percent, two percent down on its January peak.
Windows Phone relies heavily on low-end devices to sustain growth
The release of low-end devices, like the Nokia Lumia 520 and Lumia 620, has helped Windows Phone to establish itself as the third most-popular smartphone operating system worldwide. In major European markets, its success stems primarily from inexpensive smartphones. The two aforementioned handsets account for three quarters of all Nokia Lumia sales in Great Britain and similar shares in other local markets, according to a new Kantar Worldpanel ComTech report.
Windows Phone's success comes at a time when the smartphone average selling price (known as ASP) dropped by 12.5 percent to $317 in 2013, according to research firm IDC. "Momentum for Windows Phone is continuing, although its growth remains reliant on low-end handsets", says Kantar Worldpanel ComTech strategic insight director Dominic Sunnebo. In case you are wondering, Nokia's Lumia lineup accounts for more than 90 percent of all Windows Phone sales.
Bing reveals the top global search trends of 2013
We must be edging towards a new year as Bing has just released a roundup of the top search trends for 2013. It seems a bit weird to push out the results before December has even had a chance to make its presence felt, but clearly Bing wanted to get in there first.
The roundup is the result of billions of searches across 12 countries, and the full results can be explored on bingtrends.com. Bing also has blog posts covering results from the different countries.
WebCacheImageInfo is NirSoft’s latest forensics tool
NirSoft has released WebCacheImageInfo, a computer forensics tool which scans your browser caches (Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer) and displays details on any JPEGs which contain interesting metadata.
The information available can (but won’t necessarily) include the camera used to take the photo; the dates when it was taken, generated, modified or viewed in the browser; and the name of whatever editor was last used to process the image.
Windows 7's growth dwarfs that of Windows 8 and 8.1 combined
November was not a good month for Microsoft’s tiled operating system. While Windows 8.1’s market share grew, Windows 8’s share dropped (to be expected as users upgrade). But the real kicker for Microsoft was Windows 7’s growth which saw the older OS easily besting Windows 8.x’s gains.
I really like Windows 8.1 and when people ask me if they should upgrade to the new operating system I say yes, and reel off a list of reasons. But I feel deep down like I’m championing a presidential candidate who no one is ever going to vote for.
Amazon cuts price of 7-inch Kindle Fire HD and HDX for Cyber Monday
The tablet wars are reaching a boiling point. Microsoft has been releasing videos to show that Surface 2 is better than iPad Air. Then, earlier today, Amazon released a video claiming that the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is superior to the iPad Air too. However, the company is not stopping there.
Starting this evening (a bit early), Amazon is lowering the price of the 7-inch variants of the HD and HDX Kindle tablets by $50 for Cyber Monday. This beats both the Nexus 7 and iPad Mini in pricing. In other words, Amazon is going for the jugular of both Google and Apple.
Amazon is the latest to launch iPad Air attack ad
Apple can take comfort in the fact that its iPad Air is considered good enough competition to warrant the concern of other manufacturers, but that likely doesn't make the latest TV ads any more palatable to the company. Just recently Microsoft fired a shot with its Surface 2 comparison ads, and now Amazon is getting into the game with its tablet.
A new 30-second clip features a back and forth between the two devices, comparing screen resolution, weight and price. You likely don't need a spoiler alert to figure out which tablet comes out on top.
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