Google Chrome Canary introduces Google Now desktop notifications -- kind of

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Google has released a brand new version of its experimental Chrome browser with the arrival of Google Chrome Canary 34. The main new highlight in this release is supported for Google Now cards.

Google Now is Google’s card-based service that delivers useful information throughout the day -- it’s available as part of the Google Search app for Android and iOS, and is now being rolled out on the desktop too.

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Speed up your PC (and extend its life) with SoftPerfect RAM Disk

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These days, our PCs are shipping with ever increasing amounts of RAM. The idea is that more RAM helps boost performance, but the fact is that if you have 8GB or more of RAM then it’s likely there will be numerous times when that memory isn’t being utilized to the full.

One way to make maximum mileage from systems with larger amounts of memory is with a RAM disk, and the free-for-personal-use SoftPerfect RAM Disk handles the job perfectly.

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Sacramento Kings will accept Bitcoin -- first pro-sports team to do so

Bitcoins

When it comes to sports, I am a born loser. As much as I love my favorite New York teams, they aren't exactly winners -- Mets, Knicks, Jets and Islanders. Following these teams is a quick path to depression. As bad as I am at picking teams to root for, I am probably worse at picking things to invest in.

A good example is Bitcoin -- I thought about buying some bitcoins as an investment a few years back, but convinced myself it was foolish. After all, it was risky and lacked legitimacy. While hindsight is 20/20, had I bought some, I would have made a substantial profit. Not only that, more and more legitimate businesses are accepting the virtual currency as a payment option. Today, the NBA franchise Sacramento Kings announces that it too will soon begin accepting it.

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Latest Saleslogix adds social integration capabilities

Social media business

It's a rare business package these days that doesn't claim to offer some form of social capability.

With the launch of Saleslogix 8.1, marketing and CRM specialist Swiftpage has added a number of features to help sales staff interact with their customers by displaying their social networking activity within the package.

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Best iOS apps this week

horizon phone

Third in a series. The holiday season is well and truly behind us now and there's lots of big and important new releases and updates in the App Store this week. One of the most significant is a new app from Google which sees the search giant challenging Apple’s own iTunes Store (albeit with some very important Apple-appeasing limitations).

Elsewhere, cloud storage service Box announced that it has rewritten its app to make it "super-fast, simpler to use and more immersive", and as an incentive for users to try it out the app now comes with 50 GB of storage for free, which definitely makes it worth the download. You can read more about the update here.

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Rdio follows Spotify, goes free for web-based streaming

girl laptop headphones notebook music video

Streaming the music you want continues to become easier, with more choice of services and increasingly better pricing. But prices can’t get any better than free, and that seems to be where this market is now headed.

Today Rdio joins Spotify in announcing it will now host free streaming on the web. "That means you can listen to 20 million songs plus all the albums, playlists, and stations you love anywhere there’s a computer. Absolutely free", the service announces.

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Rise of the cyber tot -- 4 million British under threes use smartphones or tablets

Kids using tablets

Almost 3.5 million British children under the age of eight have tablets and nearly 4 million learned to use a smartphone or tablet before they were three.

New research from price comparison and switching service uSwitch reveals a growing nation of cyber tots with 29 percent learning to use a touch screen device before the age of three and 11 percent before they were two.

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MusicTube for Windows Phone 8 downloads audio content from YouTube videos

MusicTube for Windows Phone 8

For a long time, dedicated websites and apps have been able to separate the audio content in YouTube videos, in order for users to download it for offline playback. Even the full-blown YouTube app that was developed by Microsoft for Windows Phone offered a similar feature, which allowed users to grab the whole video instead and store it on their smartphone.

Ripping the audio from YouTube videos can come in handy for those who want to enjoy their favorite tracks, but may find themselves in areas without good-enough cellular coverage for YouTube streaming. I have experienced this scenario first-hand while traveling. For Windows Phone users, there are a couple of apps that can get this job done, with MusicTube being one of the most appealing choices.

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Xbox One top selling US console last month, but PS4 remains ahead cumulatively

xbox money machine

The PlayStation 4 might be outselling the Xbox One globally, but last month in the US Microsoft was the undisputed king of the games console.

Research firm NPD Group released sales figures for consoles in December (which Microsoft shared), that showed the Xbox One sold 908,000 units during December, making it the number ones games console in the US. And that’s not the only good news for Microsoft.

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RCS Group goes Office 365 in latest Microsoft win

Microsoft's Office 365 has been rolling along as of late, scoring wins with both corporations and local governments. Now the service is visiting overseas locales, looking for even more market entry. This time around, it lands in Italy, but not for a gondola ride in Venice.

Instead, Office 365 has been adopted by RCS Group, a leading multimedia company within the European nation. "With the benefits of a consistent approach for the end user, complete transparency for the delivery and the availability of Office applications, there will be more and more opportunities for our employees to continue to deliver new, innovative ideas", said Umberto Tonelli, chief information officer of RCS MediaGroup.

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Starbucks brews security vulnerability with its soy lattes

Coffee Beans Sad Face

Some coffee aficionados might dislike my taste in coffee. I consume trendy drinks like Skinny Vanilla Lattes from Starbucks when on the go and Keurig coffee pods at home -- hardly a French press. While the Starbucks drinks are expensive, this is my only vice -- I do not drink alcohol or smoke, so I justify the cost that way.

Whenever I am at the famous coffee chain, I see a lot of people using Apple devices. One of the coolest things about this, is that Starbucks offers an iPhone app which makes it possible to make purchases using the smartphone. Sadly though, it has come to light that there is a vulnerability in the software. While security weaknesses in the Java programming language are nothing new, one regarding java the drink is.

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Facebook copies Twitter and introduces trending topics

Facebook Trending Topics

It's starting to feel as though the myriad of social networks that exist are homogenizing. As one site introduces a feature, it is not long before the rest follow suit. Now it is Facebook's turn. Occasional leader, but often a follower, Facebook now boasts a trending topics feature. Simply known as Trending, the new feature borrows the idea used by Twitter and countless news websites to provide a constantly updating list of topics that people around the world are talking about.

In fact, Trending acts as a sort of blend between Twitter's Trends feature coupled with content suggestions. This is not a straight list of the subjects that are proving most popular around the world, but, theoretically, the list should be personalized with content that you have an interest in. That’s the theory at least.

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Planes, trains and gigabytes -- modern travelers increasingly reliant on mobile devices

Paris

These days few of us even leave the house without our smartphones. It’s no secret we’re addicted to our mobile devices, checking them constantly, and using them for all sorts of things -- from talking, texting, emailing and taking photos and videos, to browsing websites, checking the weather, accessing maps and playing games.

A new infographic from Mophie titled "A Day in the Life of a Data Traveler" shows exactly how much we rely on our mobile devices when traveling and provides interesting stats on how we use our smartphones while away and the amount of data being consumed per action.

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E-reading on the rise but print books still dominate

E-book vs tree book

New research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that the percentage of American adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28 percent, up from 23 percent in 2012.

Yet the tree book isn't dead yet, at least in the popularity sense, as the results show most e-book readers read print books as well and only four percent are e-only readers.

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Tips to improve the battery life of your Windows Phone

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In order to get more battery life out of your Windows Phone you have two viable options. The first is to purchase an external or extended battery and connect it to the smartphone -- that is not quite convenient as it adds more weight and bulk -- and the second is to tweak Windows Phone for the device to consume as little power as possible, preferably without sacrificing any important functionality.

Taking the former route involves spending time to research the available options -- there are many of them, but only a couple may suit your taste and preference -- and spending money, while the latter requires considerably less effort on your end and, best of all, has no price tag attached to it. Since you are reading this article I can only assume you are interested in finding out more about the latter option, so let us take a look at the following tips.

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