Latest Technology News

A year ago, I wrote about popSLATE 2, a crowdfunded case for iPhone that looked amazing. The proposed product put a second shatterproof E-Ink screen on the back of the phone, and doubled as a battery pack.

I was so impressed with it, I immediately backed the campaign. There’s always a risk when funding products on the likes of Indiegogo (which this was) and Kickstarter, especially when it comes to technology devices, and sadly despite raising over $1.1 million (1371 percent of its funding goal), popSLATE has announced that the company has gone bust, meaning that backers won’t receive the new product and there will be no refunds.

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The CIA's hacking tools leaked in the WikiLeaks Vault 7 disclosure revealed vulnerabilities in a range of popular software titles. Julian Assange has said that his organization will share details of the zero days revealed in the documents with the respective technology companies, but it now transpires that there are certain conditions to meet first. It’s a situation that has more than a slight air of "ransom" to it.

Microsoft has initially complained that after the initial leak there had been no contact from either WikiLeaks or the CIA, but it seems that contact has now been made with the Windows-maker and other companies. Mozilla is among those to have been contacted and to have responded, and sources suggest that Assange has attached conditions to disclosing details of vulnerabilities.

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LGBTQ+ videos are effectively being censored by Google, say a number of high-profile YouTubers. The accusations surround YouTube's Restricted Mode and the belief that this is hiding videos with LGBTQ+ content from view, leading some to suggest that active censorship is taking place.

Google says that this limited mode exists to give people the option to avoid "videos that discuss more sensitive issues." The blocking is supposed to be triggered by "community flagging, age restrictions, and other signals," but YouTubers complain that even "innocent" videos that reference same-sex relationships, "queer perspectives" and other LGBTQ+ topics have been restricted.

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Qualcomm no longer refers to Snapdragons as processors, but rather as a platform. It says it is changing the terminology because "Snapdragon is more than a single component, a piece of silicon, or what many would misinterpret as the CPU."

According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon is an anthology of technology, composed of hardware, software and services. Looking at it that way, the word "processor" is unsuitable, and therefore had to be nixed.

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Kdenlive has been a popular non-linear video editor in the Linux world for a very long time, but the developers have also recently released a first Windows port.

The build doesn't skimp on functions: there's a full multi-track timeline and an array of effects and transitions to explore.

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Things are changing at YouTube. Having previously announced plans to drop 30-second unskippable ads from videos, Google has now also revealed that it will be dropping another annoyance -- the annotations that blight many videos and distract from the actual content.

Annotations have generally been used to link to related material, push merchandize and so on, but there has been something of an issue: annotations are not very mobile-friendly. Google says that Cards (which can be displayed at any point during a video) and End Screens (which, funnily enough, appear at the end) provide the same functionality as annotations, work on mobile, and are more user-friendly.

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It is quite some time since Super Mario Run arrived for iOS and took the world by storm. Right from the start there were questions about when the Android version would appear, and the delay from Nintendo saw the springing up of a batch of malicious fakers.

Pre-registration for the Super Mario Run for Android opened up in late-December, and now Nintendo has finally revealed the launch date for one of the most eagerly-awaited Android games of all time. The Android version of Super Mario Run will launch on 23 March -- just days away!

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Having expressed concerned about privacy in Windows 10 and the scanning of Yahoo emails, the European Commission is now turning its attention to Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. The commission is concerned about a rising number of complaints from people who have fallen victim to scams on social media, and being subjected to terms and conditions that are incompatible with European law.

Having already written to the three companies back in November, the European Commission, along with EU consumer authorities, met to discuss how they will move forward. The commission says that if the proposals are unsatisfactory, "enforcement action" may be required.

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Microsoft is in the final stages of preparing the Windows 10 Creators Update, and rolling out Insider Builds at an accelerated rate. On Tuesday, it released Build 15058 for PC, followed by Build 15060 yesterday.

And today, barely giving anyone the chance to install the last build, let alone test it, Microsoft rolls out yet another new update. Like the previous two releases, Build 15061 is PC only. Microsoft was hoping to release a Mobile build this week but was prevented from doing so thanks to a pesky blocking bug.

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Huawei isn't a very well known brand in the USA, but it should be -- and probably will be. The Chinese company makes very elegant products, such as smartphones, tablets, and PCs. In fact, its MateBook portable was my pick for best Windows 10 device of 2016. Why? It is beautiful, fanless, and affordable. Seriously, it is an amazing machine with a gorgeous screen.

Today, Huawei announces some big price cuts for the MateBook, but the savings don't stop there. In addition to its Windows 10 portable, the company also shares some great deals on its MediaPad Android tablets too. Best of all, the sales can be had at quality retailers, such as the Microsoft Store, Newegg, and Amazon.

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Riot Isolator is an unusual application which offers a host of powerful privacy and security tools in a single free package.

The program should normally be installed to deliver the best protection, but there’s an option to run it stand-alone, convenient for testing.

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Thousands of Alexa developers can now build and host most Alexa skills for free using Amazon Web Services (AWS), thanks to a newly released Amazon program.

Previously, developers have had at their disposal the AWS Free Tier, offering a million AWS Lambda requests and a total of 750 hours of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) -- monthly, for free. However, exceeding these limits also meant monthly fees.

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I never thought I'd be talking passionately about lighting, but I hate E14 bulbs. Not only do most options have low power but the selection is limited as well -- at least when compared against E27 bulbs. With the launch of new Hue bulbs, however, Philips is trying to change that.

Referring to it as the "candle light bulb", the new smart E14 Hue lights that Philips just announced were "one of the most requested products by Philips Hue customers." And it's easy to understand why, as the Dutch company says that they're used in more than 80 percent of households worldwide.

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Big data has been something of a buzz word in IT and in enterprises in recent years, but while many people are enthusiastic about its potential there are fewer examples of its tangible benefits.

Canadian printing company Colourfast has produced an infographic looking at what benefits big data is actually bringing to companies.

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This year, the cyber-security focus is shifting from prevention only, into detection and response territory. This is according to a new Gartner report, which also says cyber-security spending will hit the $90 billion mark this year.

That’s actually a 7.6 percent increase year-on-year. Spending will keep on growing, Gartner says, up to $113 billion in 2020.

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