Latest Technology News

Google has issued an update to its Play Store policies banning cryptocurrency mining apps.

A new addition to the Developer Policy Center now explicitly states: "We don't allow apps that mine cryptocurrency on devices. We permit apps that remotely manage the mining of cryptocurrency". Google has also introduced a number of other restrictions including a ban on apps that allow for the sale of firearms.

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Two-hundred-and-ninety-three 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 first feature release of 2019 for Windows 10 will reduce the likelihood that update reboots interrupt work by using cloud infrastructure and new prediction algorithms.

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Slack and its rivals Atlassian have announced they are forming a strategic partnership that will see chat tools HipChat and Stride closed down.

As part of the deal, Atlassian has made an equity investment in Slack, while Slack has acquired the intellectual property rights for Stride and HipChat Cloud. Moving forward, Stride, HipChat Cloud, HipChat Server and HipDhat Data Center will all be discontinued, and users will be offered a migration path to Slack -- making it even stronger competition for Microsoft's Teams.

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Following on from a strike for violating YouTube policies, Infowars founder Alex Jones has been hit with sanctions by Facebook for contravening its community standards.

The social network -- which just dropped in value -- removed four of Jones' videos for violating its policies and banned the right-wing conspiracy theorist from using his account for 30 days. In the event of further policy breaches by Jones or his admins, his page could be permanently banned.

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Malwarebytes is one of the better tools for keeping your PC safe from the many threats you can encounter on the web, and today the company introduces a browser extension for both Firefox and Chrome.

Called simply, Malwarebytes Browser Extension (BETA) it blocks malicious websites and filters out unwanted content, which the company says results in "up to three times faster webpage load times".

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Ubuntu is one of the most popular desktop Linux-based operating systems in the world, and rightfully so. It's stable, fast, and offers a very polished user experience. Ubuntu has gotten even better recently too, since Canonical -- the company that develops the distribution -- switched to GNOME from the much-maligned Unity. Quite frankly, GNOME is the best overall desktop environment, but I digress.

Today, Ubuntu 18.04.1 becomes available. This is the first "point" release of 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver. It is chock full of fixes and optimizations, which some individuals and organizations have been waiting for before upgrading. You see, while some enthusiasts will install the latest and greatest immediately, others value stability -- especially for business -- and opt to hold off until many of the bugs are worked out. If you are a longtime Windows user, think of it like waiting for Microsoft to release a service pack before upgrading -- sort of.

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When is the most popular time for ordering pizza, Chinese food, or other forms of takeout? You might think there's no set answer, but it turns out that wherever you are in the world there’s a particular time when most people think about getting food.

Actually, that’s not completely true. There are two times.

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Hardware voice assistants are all the rage these days, but let's be honest -- humans are very visual creatures by nature. It's great to interact with our voices and ears, but it can be limiting too. For instance, if you want to ask a voice assistant, such as Alexa, what a dog is, she can tell you. But isn't it better to be shown as well? In other words, in certain situations audio-only is fine, but in others, visualization can be a plus. It is good to have choice.

Amazon saw the light and introduced Echo devices with screens, such as the Echo Show and Echo Spot. Now it's Google's turn. Today, the search giant announces the first-ever devices using its Smart Display platform are available for purchase. If you aren't familiar, it is essentially a tablet that is intended to primarily be stationary -- so you always know where it is. It is a Google Home on steroids, if you will. There are just two models to be had today, both from Lenovo.

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Out of the blue today, Donald Trump took to his favorite medium of Twitter to complain that the company was "shadow banning" prominent Republicans -- and it wasn't long before Donald Trump Jr sided with his father.

The allegations stem from a Vice article that suggested Twitter was limiting the visibility of searches for key Republican figures -- something Twitter denies. The company says that a bug is to blame and it is actively working on addressing it.

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Facebook shares and the personal fortune of Mark Zuckerberg took massive hits as the social network felt the impact of a growth slowdown and the fallout of recent privacy scandals.

The company issued a warning to investors about a deceleration of growth in its userbase, leading to a stock drop of around 20 percent. A drop in share price lowered the value of Facebook by a massive $118 billion -- a record-breaking one-day drop in the value of a company.

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Thanks to legislation like GDPR businesses need to report data breaches promptly or face large fines. However, in the heat of a security incident it can be easy to overlook vital procedures.

Privileged account management specialist Thycotic is aiming to help with the launch of a free Incident Response Policy Template to help businesses take the right steps at the right time.

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Password manager app Dashlane is launching the latest version of its software complete with a new Identity Dashboard, which provides a complete picture of a user's online security and clear actionable steps to improve it.

The dashboard integrates dynamic new features like dark web monitoring, as well as a new Password Health assessment, that put people in complete control of their digital identities.

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IT security professionals are more than twice as worried about data breaches and cyberattacks today than they were this time last year according to two new reports.

The International Cyber Benchmarks Index and The Changing Face of Cyber Attacks, from the Neustar International Security Council (NISC), reveal the greatest threats as system compromises and ransomware, with 20 percent listing both as their primary concern

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With the launch of Chrome 68 a few days ago, Google changed the way it handled non-HTTPS websites. But the browser update also hides a secret -- a Material Design mode that you can enable by tinkering with the relevant hidden settings.

The new look is currently available on the desktop and in the iOS version of Chrome, and it gives the browser a much cleaner, fresher look and a bit of a UI rejig.

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We may not yet know for certain what it's going to be called, but we now have a very good idea of what to expect from Android P -- or Android 9.0, if you prefer. After numerous developer previews, Google has now released the fourth and final beta ahead of the official launch later this summer.

This is very close to the final code that will be pushed to phones in the coming weeks and months, and Google says that "Beta 4 update includes a release candidate build with final system behaviors and the official Android P APIs (API level 28)". While it's aimed primarily at developers, there's nothing to stop anyone with a compatible handset (or emulator) downloading and installing the final beta of Android P.

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