Latest Technology News

A new report suggests that Apple may have succeeded in attracting more subscribers to Apple Music than have signed up to Spotify -- in the US, at least.

While this is far from official -- with the report being based on an anonymous source -- it is in keeping with the general feeling from earlier in the year when it was thought that Apple Music probably was going to overtake Spotify in the near future.

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USB power banks are a dime a dozen these days. Believe it or not, they are often given away at trade shows and conferences -- they have become a ubiquitous throwaway promotional item, much like the USB flash drive. Not to mention, sites like Amazon are littered with these USB battery packs at rock bottom prices. Of course, that's not to say all power banks are created equally. Just like with flash drives, power bank specifications matter. It is still worth investing in a quality unit.

With all of that said, it can be very hard for such a device to stand out. Belkin has managed to do so, however. How? By adding an Apple MFi-certified Lightning port to its latest USB battery pack. Called "BOOST↑CHARGE Power Bank 10K," it features two USB-A ports for charging devices, but to charge the bank itself, you use a Lightning cable. How cool is that?

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Two-hundred-and-ninety 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.

Latest usage share statistics suggest that Windows 10 is still trailing behind Windows 7 and that Windows 10 may not surpass Windows 7 this year in usage share.

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People sometimes forget that when the first-ever iPhone launched in 2007, there was no App Store. Believe it or not, Apple's smartphone was limited to the apps with which it came -- hardly "smart." In fact, Steve Jobs famously didn't want third-party apps on the iPhone at all -- the man was a genius, but not always. Ultimately, the App Store was added in 2008 despite Jobs' initial push against it. This move changed the computer industry forever.

This month, the Apple App Store reaches an impressive milestone -- a 10th Birthday. This day is important for three groups -- Apple (of course), but more importantly, consumers and developers. Apple has made billions of dollars from the App Store, but third party developers have as well -- the company has literally transformed some devs into millionaires. Consumers have benefited from high-quality applications too. You may not remember, but before the iPhone came along, mobile apps were absolute garbage.

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Need a PC problem fixed in a pinch? Troubleshooting & Maintaining Your PC All-in-One For Dummies offers 5 books in 1 and takes the pain out of wading through those incomprehensible manuals, or waiting for a high-priced geek to show up days or weeks after you need them.

There's nothing worse than firing up your PC only to discover it's inexplicably unresponsive. With this guide, you'll gain all the skills and insight you need to need to bring it back to life -- and to prevent it from ever leaving you in the lurch again.

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NetMarketShare reports on the state of the desktop operating system market on the first day of each month, and it has long shown Windows 10 to be lagging behind Windows 7. This is in stark contrast to the figures from rival analyst firm StatCounter which famously had Windows 10 overtaking its predecessor way back in January.

This time around NetMarketShare took a few days extra to present its numbers for June, but after an audit, in which the figures changed considerably, they are finally available and make for interesting reading.

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While businesses spend a lot of time and effort putting up technical defenses to protect their systems, often the weakest spot is the users.

Employees can do harm to the business by visiting infected websites, responding to phishing emails, using business email through public Wi-Fi and more. Spam filtering service EveryCloud has put together an infographic looking at why it’s therefore important for companies to offer cybersecurity training.

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Binance -- the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world -- temporarily halted all trading after it detected "irregular trading on some APIs".

As a precautionary measure, the exchange removed all existing API keys and asked users to re-create theirs from their accounts. The measure meant a suspension of trading, withdrawals and other account activity. The matter is related to the Bitcoin fork Syscoin which halted deposits and withdrawals, but Binance stressed that there had not been as hack and that its blockchain is safe.

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There are countless Linux distributions these days, but one in particular seems to really get people excited -- elementary OS. Why is this? Well, the developers of the operating system focus heavily on the user interface and experience -- it is kind of like a mix between GNOME and macOS. For those that still believe the fabled "year of the Linux desktop" is coming, elementary OS' beauty and polish serves as a beacon of hope. Unfortunately, the distribution has not made a significant impact -- yet.

If you are a fan of the operating system, you will be happy to know elementary OS 5.0 "Juno" Beta 1 is available right now! Before you get too excited, however, you probably shouldn't install it. The developers are making it very clear that Juno Beta 1 is not yet ready for prime time, and it is not intended for end users. While you can install it if you want, you will not have a good experience -- it is really just intended for third-party app developers at this point.

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Six years ago today I penned my personal Declaration of Independence from Apple, nearly a month after pledging to boycott the company's products and services—and I did, only to quietly stop six months later. They say history repeats, eh? On this July 4th, I forsake the fruit-logo company once more. From Apple I return to Google, choosing one digital lifestyle over the other—and not for the first time, as some commenters will be quick to argue.

Past to present: By summer 2012, I viewed various patent assaults by Apple against Samsung and others as competition by litigation, not innovation. Weighing on my decision in 2018 is a newer—and more aggressive—attack against Qualcomm, which headquarters are in San Diego (my city of residence). While a Qualcomm customer, Apple also is a fierce chip competitor that seeks to bolster margins by paying less for patents—and by invalidating or diminishing them, destabilize competition from the Android Army.

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Another day, another privacy concern. Following a Wall Street Journal story about the access third party apps have to Gmail data, we wrote about how to stop it. While the WSJ did not really make any major new revelations, it did manage to reignite the conversation about privacy, and Google has responded to storm that has built up around it.

The company has used a blog post to respond to the concerns raised by the Wall Street Journal, insisting that it carefully vets any third party that has access to sensitive data. The task has been left to Suzanne Frey -- director of security, trust and privacy at Google Cloud -- to limit the damage caused by the article.

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Tomorrow is July 4th -- a very special day for the United States of America. This is the day we celebrate our independence from the then-tyrannical British government. Thankfully, the Brits are now our allies -- we can enjoy some of their finest exports, such as Ed Sheeran, without guilt.

While you are celebrating America's freedom, why not also celebrate your computing freedom by switching from Windows to Linux? Rather than install a distro on your aging PC, you could totally buy a new computer that comes with Linux pre-installed! System76 sells such computers with either Ubuntu or its own Ubuntu-based Pop!_OS, and today, it announces a very rare sale.

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Back in May, we reported on several Ubuntu Linux-powered Dell Precision "Developer Edition" mobile workstations that would be released in 2018. At the time, only one of these laptops was available for purchase -- the Precision 3530.

Of course, the needs of all Ubuntu users cannot be met with just one machine. Thankfully, starting today, two more of these laptops become available for purchase. The Dell Precision 7530 and 7730, as they are called, are 15-inch and 17-inch laptops, respectively.

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If you have a Samsung Galaxy S9, S9+ or Note 8, you might want to check that your contacts haven't got hold of some of your photos. Some owners of the handsets are reporting that the Samsung Messages SMS app has been sending out images from their camera rolls to random contacts.

Worryingly, many people who were affected by the privacy-invading leaks were only made aware of the problem when their friends asked about the images they'd received -- the Messages app does not reveal that anything has been sent. Samsung says that it is aware of the issue and is investigating what is happening.

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When Gmail first launched back in 2004, people were concerned about it because Google was scanning incoming messages in order to be able to present users with relevant, personalized adverts based on the email content.

The feature was finally dropped a year ago, in a move welcomed by privacy advocates, but it turns out employees of third-party app developers may well have been reading your private messages.

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