Latest Technology News

Following on from Facebook's decision to override users' ad blocking tools, Adblock Plus has fired one more shot, saying that it will continue the fight for the right to an ad-free social networking experience.

After finding a way to prevent Facebook blocking ads, which Facebook then bypassed once again, Adblock Plus says that while the game of cat and mouse may continue, it wants to use what it describes as "probably be the last time we talk about it for a while" to say that the open source community will fight the good fight for users.

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Asian nations are not very secure places to keep your digital data, a new report by secure data centre Artmotion suggests.

The report was built on data from the UN, World Economic Forum and Transparency International, among other groups. Titled Data Danger Zones, it ranks more than 170 nations on how good they are at keeping data secure.

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Notebook shipments have returned to a somewhat "healthier" state, but the second half of the year, which is traditionally seen as the "peak" in shipments, is expected to be weaker than usual. These are the highlights of a new report by market analysts TrendForce.

Total number of notebook shipments for the first half of 2016 hit 74.18 million units, representing a four percent decline compared to the year before, and TrendForce sees this as a return to a more healthy state.

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Samsung announced the Galaxy Note7 earlier than usual, choosing to unveil the new flagship in early-August instead of waiting for the IFA show in September as it has done with previous models. And, by doing so, it had no other option than to release it with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, even though a new version of the mobile operating system -- dubbed Nougat -- is on the horizon.

There are some potential buyers who are understandably disappointed by this, knowing that Android 7.0 should launch in the coming weeks. The good news is that Samsung plans to release the Nougat update for the Galaxy Note7 soon.

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A year on from the release of Windows 10 most businesses are still reluctant to adopt the OS, according to research by solutions and managed services company Softchoice.

Based on an evaluation of more than 400,000 Windows-based computing devices between January and May this year, across 169 organizations in the US and Canada using the TechCheck asset management solution, the study reveals less than one percent were running Windows 10.

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Business leaders everywhere now recognize information as a strategic asset. Many executives value data governance as a powerful tool that reduces risk and supports data-based decision making. But what is data governance, what does it do,  and what day-to-day support does it offer to CEOs?

A company’s digital wealth requires consistent, company-wide information management. Data governance is an umbrella term for the standards and practices that guide how information is managed and used in businesses. It provides a framework, which ensures that important data assets are used consistently throughout the organization. But wait, you say, isn’t information management the CIO’s role? Yes, but inconsistent data management can affect a company’s ability to meet its business goals. That’s when it’s time for a CEO to monitor and guide company-wide data governance policies and practices. Here are some examples of when CEO attention and guidance would be required.

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One-hundred and ninety-three in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 in the past seven days.

This week saw quite the flurry of articles about the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Find out how to disable ads and tips, fix update related issues, or slow Internet speed after applying the update.

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Facebook's constant tinkering with newsfeed algorithms has a tendency to leave people asking what on earth is wrong with a simple chronological display of posts. But the social network -- driven by ads -- feels that it knows better and likes to play with the code that determines what you see.

Having made changes to ensure that you see more posts from the people you know (well, Facebook is supposed to be about friends and family...) the latest change sees the social network aiming to bring you posts that are "more personally informative".

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Google has been fined 438 million rubles ($6.75 million) by the Russian antitrust authority for abusing its market position following a complaint by Yandex, Russia’s biggest search engine.

Google has been found guilty of forcing Android smartphone makers to install its search engine on their devices, which has been seen to breach "protecting competition" laws.

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Facebook's announcement that it would start to punch through ad blockers to make sure everyone sees ads was met with understandable condemnation and consternation. One of the best known ad blockers, Adblock Plus, soundly criticized the move, saying that it was an example of 'cat-and-mouse games'.

And so it begins. Facebook may have said that it will circumvent ad blocking tools, but now ad blockers are fighting back. The open source community has worked is magic and come up with code that circumvents Facebook's circumvention. How meta...

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Windows 10 Anniversary Update rolled out to all users last week, but the Windows team doesn’t rest on its laurels for long, and is already working on new builds.

Today those Insiders who elected to stay in the program, and not switch back to the current branch, get the first new release for the Fast ring -- Build 14901 for PC.

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A third of students are either considering starting a business, or already have one, new research from Santander Universities says. This equates to a total of 518,000 students, who generate £913 million every year, the report adds.

However, it’s not (just) money that motivates these people. Instead, they’re more interested in pursuing a hobby or personal interest (70 percent). Financial gain is only placed second (58 percent), right before work experience (26 percent).

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In an attempt to get more users to upgrade to Windows 10, Microsoft announced early this year that it would drop support for Intel Skylake processors on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 after July 17, 2017. The controversial policy was short lived though, as a few months later the software giant gave its customers a one-year reprieve, pushing the deadline to July 18, 2018.

But, as you can see, that is not the end of the story, as Microsoft has changed its mind once again. Today, it announces that Intel's sixth-generation processors will actually be supported for an even longer period of time on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices. That is good news for those who are not planning on upgrading to Windows 10 in the foreseeable future.

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Microsoft is doing its part protecting its users from hackers, but it can’t do everything on its own.

According to new figures released by Secunia Research in its Country Reports, covering Q2 2016 for 12 countries, the number of unpatched Windows machines is on the decline. Compared to Q1 this year, when 6.1 percent of systems were unpatched, only 5.4 percent are not up to date now. Same time last year, the figure was 10.3 percent.

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One way to access data efficiently and accelerate the development and deployment of analytics apps is to build an API. APIs are a natural way to access data, whether it be personalization scores for web content or a service to assess the risk of a part failing.

There are a number of benefits to using an API for data access. First, it restricts the user to efficient requests. Google Analytics is a prime example. A query API gives you access to the rich data in your Google Analytics instance. While the API is fairly flexible, it allows Google to more accurately describe the types of queries that can be performed efficiently.

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