Latest Technology News

IBM has announced its commitment to a multi-million pound project that will see the company construct four new data centers in the UK to increase its cloud capabilities in the region.

The company revealed its new project ahead of the Autumn Statement, which offered a boost to the Government that has recently seen a number of large US technology companies increasing their operations in the country. IBM's decision to create four new data centers will triple its cloud computing capacity in the UK.

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Back in the the mid-1990's, everyone thought they needed a computer. After all, Windows 95 made using one particularly easy, and the internet was a very attractive thing. Unfortunately, once some people got their first-ever PC set up in their homes, they didn't really know what to do with it. In the end, it would turn out that some consumers spent thousands of dollars for a machine dedicated to one thing -- playing Solitaire! Yes, this fun Windows game is responsible for much wasted time, but not just at home -- at businesses too. The card game has historically been viewed as a negative for productivity.

Fast forward to 2016 and fewer people are sitting in front of large desktop computers at home -- people are increasingly turning to tablets and smartphones for entertainment. Today, just in time for Thanksgiving, Microsoft Solitaire Collection comes to both Android and iOS.

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Bitsum Technologies has released a beta of CPUBalance, its intelligent tool for optimizing PC responsiveness. The program uses the same ProBalance technology as Process Lasso to monitor running processes, detect CPU hogs, and instantly adjust priorities to keep your system running smoothly.

CPUBalance runs stand-alone, and you don’t need Process Lasso to try it out. Just install and launch the program and it works immediately.

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Traffic fatalities are up for the first time in 25 years, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, and one of the leading causes is distraction. One in ten people die on US roads as a result, and smartphones play a key part in it, so regulators want to do something about it. But, what exactly?

The NHTSA will come up with a set of voluntary guidelines for smartphone manufacturers to limit the level of interaction their users can have while driving a vehicle. "As millions of Americans take to the roads for Thanksgiving gatherings, far too many are put at risk by drivers who are distracted by their cellphones", says US Transportation secretary Anthony Foxx. "These commonsense guidelines, grounded in the best research available, will help designers of mobile devices build products that cut down on distraction on the road".

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Apple is planning some Black Friday offers, but if you’re looking to get a good deal on a new MacBook Pro (2016), you’re probably going to be very disappointed.

However, UK retailer Argos has the deal of the century on the new MacBook Pro with TouchBar -- it’s currently offering it for just £100 ($124) -- a significant saving over the recommended price of £1,449. And if that’s still a bit rich for you, there are credit options available.

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The world is ever more reliant on data, but consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about where their personal details are stored and who has access to them.

Professional technology standards body IEEE has carried out a survey of 1,000 UK adults which finds that 81 percent believe the public should be better educated on how their data is being used online.

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Unless you’ve taken steps to actively block Windows 10’s mandatory updates, the chances are the new OS is regularly installing updates without your knowledge, and you'll probably only discover a new one has happened if/when something goes wrong.

For the most part, updates are perfectly safe, introduce occasional new features, and keep your system protected from threats, without you needing to lift a finger. But if you’re the sort of person who likes to know exactly what’s going on with your computer, there are a couple of ways to keep track of the Windows 10 updates.

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Oracle is showing no desire to slow down it's spending spree after announcing the acquisition of DNS provider Dyn for an undisclosed sum.

The timing of the deal has raised a few eyebrows as, although Dyn powers some of the biggest sites in the world such as Netflix, Twitter and Spotify, in October it was hit by a DDoS attack which took several of its big-name clients offline.

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On this year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday, more Americans will be shopping online than ever before, but a new study reveals that the majority are concerned about the potential to have their personal and financial information hacked.

The survey from cybersecurity company UpGuard shows that almost 95 percent of consumers are concerned about the security of their information online, and more than half would break with their favorite brands if they knew their information was at risk.

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It’s a funny time to be the CEO of a social media site. First Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was "Killed" by his creation (along with a bunch of other users), and yesterday for a short time, Twitter suspended the account of its CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey.

It may not be quite as bad as "killing" its CEO, but Twitter mistakenly suspending the account of the person who helped create it is still hugely embarrassing.

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Apple’s Touch Bar is a major new selling point for its latest generation of MacBooks, but that doesn’t mean you have to purchase one to find out what it’s all about. Touché 1.0 is a new freeware tool that places a virtual Touch Bar on the desktop of any Mac running the very latest version of MacOS Sierra (10.12.1 v2 or later).

This isn’t an emulator, but a virtual copy of the Touch Bar itself, identical in every way to the hardware-based bar found on the latest MacBooks.

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The UK government's relationship with the web is something of a checkered one. Keen to pander to the fear of concerned hand-wringers, we've seen torrent sites blocked and there are plans afoot to censor porn sites that do not implement 'effective' age checks.

Now there is a chance that UK web users will be denied access to websites that portray "non-conventional sexual acts" in the latest act of censorship by the government. A bill currently being considered would apply the same restrictions to online pornography that currently apply offline.

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Racism is something that’s in the news a lot at the moment following Donald Trump’s election victory and the rise of the alt-right. The unfortunate side effect of all this is companies occasionally get criticized for doing something that isn’t the slightest bit racist, but could be viewed as such, if you chose to do so.

Case in point, a day or so ago Microsoft sent out a promotional email for Dead Rising 4 with the subject heading "NNNNGGGHHAAAA". That’s a zombie groan right? Nope, apparently, it’s the N-word.

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Google Sites recently underwent something of a redesign and it was made available to a select group of testers. Now the website building tool is available for everyone to use.

For anyone who has used any of Google's online apps, Sites will be immediately familiar. Like so many web building tools, it eschews HTML in favour of a WYSIWYG interface, meaning that even web novices can get a site up and running easily.

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Google has announced that it has acquired Qwiklabs in order to train developers how to use its cloud services.

Qwiklabs is designed as a way to give developers and IT professionals a hands-on learning platform from which they can gain experience with cloud platforms and the way in which they operate. The company launched in 2012 and its primary focus is teaching its customers how to use the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.

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