Google brings Android Pay to Japan
Mobile payments could one day be the death of cash. While many people will surely be anxious regarding the disappearance of paper money, it is really not the question of "if", but "when". True, that takes away privacy, but it also limits the possibilities of secret transactions for things like illegal drugs or unregistered handguns. Not to mention, it is very convenient!
Android Pay is Google's smartphone-based mobile payment system, and it has been growing in popularity in the USA. Today, Android Pay comes to yet another country -- Japan.
Five IT predictions for 2017
Technological innovation drives every business, industry and sector -- mostly positively, but not always. 2016 was no exception -- from the first long-haul driverless cargo delivery to automated retail locations to the stiffening competition among ‘smart assistants’ we’re seeing big technological leaps at a breakneck pace.
At the same time, many of the enterprise trends of the last few years are continuing, such as traditional businesses leading big digital transformation and the move to public clouds, with the continued market dominance of Amazon’s $13B AWS business.
Google makes 'Embedding Projector' an open source project
Data can be highly valuable, and no company knows that more than Google. It is constantly collecting a massive amount of it -- it is pretty much how the company butters its bread. Data only has value when it can be used, however, meaning it must ultimately tell a story. In other words, collecting it is only the beginning.
One of the best ways to digest and present data is with visualizations and dashboards. Not everyone is a data scientist, so how you tell a story matters. Today, Google is making a rather nifty data visualization tool an open source project. Called "Embedding Projector", it can show what the search giant calls "high-dimensional data".
What's the difference between deep learning and machine learning?
2016 has been the year of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and more specifically, the breakout of machine learning and deep learning becoming the big buzz words in technology. While both have gained a lot of attention this year, these techniques have been around for quite some time, but no more so than now, has it felt so promising.
Over the past few years, there has been a monumental shift in technology and how it’s being applied to everyday life. From robots to search engines, deep learning and machine learning are being raved about as the tech fueling our new innovations, but many are left wondering what truly differentiates these two models.
Dropbox comes to Xbox One
Dropbox is one of my favorite services -- something I am happy to pay for monthly. There are many cloud storage solutions out there, but I chose it for a very specific reason -- cross-platform compatibility. On a daily basis, I use iOS, Fedora, and Windows 10. Heck, I just ordered one of those fancy new MacBook Pro laptops too. Regardless of the operating system I choose, I know Dropbox will work for me.
Today, Dropbox comes to another platform and it is rather exciting. The Xbox One gets an app for the storage platform, letting you view photos and videos. If you own Microsoft's console, and back up your family photos to Dropbox (as I do), you can now easily view them on your big TV screen. How cool is that?
Microsoft: Surface just enjoyed its most successful month ever, thanks to the new Apple MacBook Pro
Microsoft likes to compare its Surface range with the MacBook Pro at any given opportunity, even though the two products are very different.
November, according to Microsoft, was the best month ever for consumer Surface sales, and the software giant is gleefully claiming that disappointment with the new MacBook Pro is part of the reason behind the surge. But is it? Really?
QOwnNotes is a versatile notepad and to-do list manager
At first glance, QOwnNotes doesn’t seem like the most interesting of apps. An "open source plain-text file notepad"? Aren’t there enough of those already?
Download and try the program, though, and you might be surprised at how much more it can do.
Fighting ransomware in the cloud
A recent survey of 500 businesses revealed that nearly half were brought to a standstill by a ransomware attack within the last 12 months. Ransomware is malware that installs covertly on a victim's computer, executes a crypto-virology attack that adversely affects it, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt it or to not publish it.
There has been more and more documented evidence that ransomware is on the rise, particularly in the UK. It's being used as a sort of testing ground to the point whereby ransomware has become the number one threat facing British organizations in 2016.
Windows 10 is now more successful than Windows 7, according to Microsoft -- no, really
While it was free, and being forced on to users’ computers, Windows 10 enjoyed predictably solid growth. By the end of August -- the first month in which Windows 10 was no longer free -- NetMarketShare measured the new operating system’s usage share at 22.99 percent globally. Not too shabby, but still quite some distance behind Windows 7, on 47.25 percent.
Microsoft’s own figures -- which represent market share rather than usage share -- paint a very different picture. Three months ago, the software giant caused eyebrows to be raised with its claim that in June the new OS hit 50 percent share in the US (51 percent in the UK, 39 percent globally). Its figures have just been updated again, and yes prepare to have your incredulity stretched even further.
Access Ext2, HFS and other file systems with DiskInternals Linux Reader
DiskInternals Linux Reader is a freeware Windows application for browsing drives using Linux, Apple and other file systems. The program enables reading (but not writing) drives using Ext2/3/4, ReiserFS, Reiser4, HFS, HFS+, FAT, exFAT, NTFS, ReFS and UFS2.
It’s also possible to mount and read raw disk images (*.dsk, *.img) and assorted virtual disk formats (*.vmdk, *.vhd, *.vhdx, *.vdi, *.vds).
Automatically optimise your photos with AutoHDR
Top photo editors will often have "auto-fix" tools to optimize colors, lighting, sharpness and more, all with a single click. But they’re often short on configuration options, and some editors may not have any automatic fixes at all.
AutoHDR is a tiny stand-alone replacement for other image enhancers. Drag and drop a photo, click Process, then Save: it could be as simple as that.
What you need to know about hyperconvergence
As companies grow, their IT systems tend to expand in a way that can lead to them becoming unwieldy and hard to control. Hyperconvergence is about simplifying things by consolidating the IT infrastructure into a virtualized system, this reduces the number of devices, cuts maintenance costs and ensures there are fewer potential points of failure, making systems more resilient.
Essentially it’s a software defined architecture that merges storage, networking and other resources on a single system based on commodity hardware. The benefits of this include being able to manage the whole thing as a single system through a common tool set.
Linux Mint lacks resources to maintain KDE Plasma version -- turns to Kubuntu team for help
There are too many dang Linux distributions and desktop environments nowadays. This is frustrating, as it spreads developer resources too thin. In other words, developers are often working on too many separate projects that further fragments the community. Linux on the desktop could be much further along if teams pooled resources and focused on a narrower field of development.
Today, Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint leader, concedes that his team simply doesn't have the resources to meet its goals. You see, the team is finding it very difficult to maintain a KDE Plasma version of its operating system, so it has turned to the Kubuntu team instead. The question becomes, why bother? KDE users should simply use Kubuntu and the Linux Mint team should stay focused on Cinnamon and Mate. Am I right?
Windows 10 suddenly killing internet connectivity for some users
Microsoft pushed out a new cumulative update to the Windows 10 release channel yesterday, and a number of users are reporting that it’s causing their internet connection to stop working, although there’s speculation that the update isn’t the cause at all.
The update, KB3201845, is designed to fix various issues with the new operating system and was first issued to Windows Insiders in November but the problem clearly wasn’t flagged up with it then, and some people are saying the problem started for them before the update was rolled out.
The most popular How To guides of 2016
In addition to news and reviews, we also regularly publish 'How to' guides here on BetaNews.
These are often very popular and cover a range of topics, software, and services. Taking a look back, as is the tradition at this time of year, I thought it would be good to revisit the most popular guides published in the past 12 months.
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