Latest Technology News

This time of year in the United States is full of excess and commercialism. It starts with Thanksgiving -- a day that should be about giving thanks and spending time with family, which has morphed into overeating and watching football for many. The following day is Black Friday, where people spend huge amounts of money to buy things they probably don't need -- sometimes even fighting with fellow shoppers. Yesterday was Cyber Monday -- yet another holiday focused on buying things. Sigh.

Thankfully, there is one day that Americans can use to atone for their sins of greed and gluttony -- Giving Tuesday. Yes, the day after Cyber Monday is celebrated by donating to charities and being an overall better person. Today, Amazon announces that people can donate to Toys for Tots using its popular Alexa voice assistant. Not familiar with this charity? Well, the name is quite descriptive -- it is literally donating toys to needy children.

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The Windows 10 October 2018 Update has been one of the most problematic Microsoft releases ever. It seems that every time the company pushes out the update, yet another issue arises.

The Windows 10 October 2018 Update has already caused issues with Apple iCloud, file associations, data loss... the list goes on and on. The latest problem sees the update breaking Windows Media Player.

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It's two years since international forces interfered with the security of the US elections. However, with the US midterm elections behind us and the presidential elections ahead, vulnerabilities in the country’s voting infrastructure still remain.

Simply put, it's not hard to hack into US voting systems. Don't believe it? Just ask the 11-year old who hacked a replica of the Florida election website to change results in under 10 minutes. We might not have seen widespread cyberattacks on the day of the midterms, but as we saw multiple opportunities for hacking and disruption in the run up, the presidential elections are already at risk.

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Facebook's plan for Facebook Watch to be a viable competitor to YouTube seemed a little unlikely -- to say the least -- and it would seem that the pessimists were right. Facebook Watch has proved to be a dud.

A little over a year after launch, the on-demand video service has gained an audience of just 50 million people. This might initially sound like a large number, but YouTube has -- admittedly over a number of years -- amassed over 1.8 billion users. The problem appears to be that younger audiences are simply not interested in Facebook Watch, so Facebook is now switching the focus of the service to an older market.

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In May 2010, I wrote about Apple's market cap passing top-valued Microsoft; it's only fitting to follow up with an analysis about the unbelievable turnabout that, like the first, marks a changing of technological vanguards. Briefly today, the software and services giant nudged past the stock market's fruit-logo darling. A few minutes after 1 p.m. EST, the pair's respective market caps hovered in the $812 billion range, with Microsoft cresting Apple by about $300 million. By the stock market close, a rally for Apple put distance from its rival: $828.64 billion to $817.29 billion, respectively (Bloomberg says $822.9 billion, BTW). Consider this: As recently as October, Apple's valuation touched $1.1 trillion. But since the company announced arguably record fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on November 1st, investors have punished shares, which currently are down about 21 percent.

Apple has long been a perception stock, even when under the tutelage of CEO Tim Cook company fundamentals deserved recognition. But perhaps Wall Street finally realizes the problem of iPhone accounting for too much of total revenues at a time when smartphone saturation saps sales and Apple pushes up selling prices to retain margins. More significantly: Apple has adopted a policy of fiscal corporate secrecy by stepping away from a longstanding accounting metric. I started writing news stories about the fruit-logo company in late 1999. Every earnings report, Apple disclosed number of units shipped for products contributing significantly to the bottom line. No more. Given current market dynamics, everyone should ask: What is Cook and his leadership team trying to hide?

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Forget Black Friday, Cyber Monday is now the biggest shopping day of the year. Amazon is shipping millions of packages per day and many other companies are offering deals, including some you may not expect.

One you may not have thought of concerns your family history. I’m not talking about sending you to cemeteries, archives and historical societies, although I recommend that if you really want to dig into things. We’re just talking the basics here, which is where in the world your family originated from.

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Businesses should expect to see a spike in potential cyberattacks starting with Black Friday and Cyber Monday and continuing throughout the holiday shopping season, according to a new report.

The report from predictive security specialist Carbon Black shows that global organizations encountered a 57.5 percent increase in attempted cyberattacks during the 2017 holiday shopping season.

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German software developer Ashampoo GmbH has released Ashampoo Uninstaller 8.0, a major new version of its program clean-up tool for Windows.

The new release adds several notable new features: the ability to drag and drop programs to remove them, support for the Opera web browser and a new File Wiper module for thorough file cleaning.

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If you are a fan of light and thin laptops, you are probably very satisfied with the current crop of notebooks on the market. Whether you want Windows 10, macOS, or Chrome OS, there are plenty of svelte machines from which to choose. It is quite remarkable to see how much power can be packed into such a slim body.

ASUS has a new addition to its VivoBook 14 series, and it looks very pretty. The "X420," as it is called, features a "frameless display." This is really jut marketing speak for extremely thin bezels. As you can see from the images, there actually is a frame. While the selling point is a misnomer, it is impressive nonetheless. The X420 is not form over function either -- the internal specs are respectable too.

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Tomorrow is Cyber Monday, a modern addition to the holiday shopping season that originated from people returning to work after the long holiday weekend and, with access to a PC and fast internet, doing some shopping on the company’s time

The day has grown into a phenomenon and is expected to outperform Black Friday in 2018, with predictions ranging in the neighborhood of $7 billion in sales.

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Holiday shopping is now in full effect. Black Friday may only be a memory at this point, but Cyber Monday is just a day away.

Here's the cool thing, though -- stores are not waiting until Monday to launch their special "Cyber" deals. For instance, Amazon -- the king of online retailers -- has tons of amazing deals live right now. Not only are there discounts on the company's own offerings, such as Fire TV and Echo, but on products from Netgear, Ecobee, and more. To make your shopping even easier, we have compiled the top "tech" related deals.

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It’s been two years in development, but the next big release for Kodi is nearly here.

Today the hugely popular home theater software hits a major milestone, with the arrival of the first Release Candidate for Kodi 18 'Leia' -- RC1. This release should be much more stable that the five previous betas, and the Kodi Foundation shares the following stats:

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Three-hundred-and-ten in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Windows Store in the past seven days.

The October 2018 Update for Windows 10 is available again but you may want to wait a bit longer before you install it. Check out Wayne's article for reasons why.

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Apple has a four-day shopping event running from today until Monday, promising shoppers "special offers when you buy select products". Running from the day that is a celebration of commercialism and capitalism, Black Friday, through the weekend and up to Cyber Monday, the Apple Shopping Event is -- unfortunately -- nothing to get excited about.

This is not entirely unexpected. Apple has form when it comes to disappointing Black Friday offers. If you were hoping for massive discounts, prepare to feel let down.

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The latest feature update of Windows 10, the October 2018 Update, or Windows 10 1809 if you prefer, has been something of a disaster for Microsoft, and even more so for some early adopters.

The list of problems users have encountered with it -- so far -- include data loss, file association issues, Apple iCloud not working, mapped drives not reconnecting, Edge problems, and much more. Microsoft pulled the update for a considerable amount of time to fix a bunch of problems, but even more new ones are emerging on a regular basis.

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