Latest Technology News

While Microsoft is desperate to get as many users as possible on to Windows 10 before the free period expires at the end of July, it hasn’t entirely forgotten about its previous operating systems.

The software giant today announces it has created a convenience rollup package for Windows 7 that will bring that operating system up to the newest patched version without users having to install all previous updates one by one. It’s also making monthly update rollups available for that OS and Windows 8.1 (as well as Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2).

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Amazon has been actively pursuing improvements to its line of products, be it Echo, Fire TV, Kindle or Fire tablet. Of all of the products, perhaps the most updated one and the one which gets the most attention, is the Echo, often referred to as Alexa.

The latest improvements are to Fire TV, gaining Alexa-like features. This isn't technically an Echo update, but an update to the set-top box.

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Google may soon face a record €3 billion fine from the European antitrust authorities over how it abused its control of the online search market in the EU.

This will be the highest fine the European Commission has ever issued as an antitrust punishment. In addition to the fine, Google will be banned from manipulating its search results to favor itself over its rivals.

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The days when you forget your driver’s license and ending up paying a fine for it might soon be a thing of the past, as there are people out there working on a paperless version of the license.

According to a BBC report this week, the UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is working on such a project, and there’s already a prototype in place. A photo of the prototype was tweeted recently by CEO Oliver Morley.

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ActiveState Software has released Komodo IDE 10, a major update for the already powerful development environment. New support for Chrome Remote Debugging means there’s no need to keep switching from the IDE to Chrome’s web tools: you can do all your coding and debugging from inside Komodo.

PhoneGap and Cordova integration makes life easier for mobile developers, and it’s not just about switching environments: Komodo provides context-sensitive actions to suit each situation.

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Companies are increasingly turning to analytics to gain a competitive advantage and help with customer retention. But a recent study from cloud analytics specialist Birst reveals that half of the companies surveyed that attempted to create in-house analytics products reported being unsatisfied with the results.

To meet demand for reliable analytics products, Birst has announced new capabilities that boost time-to-market and deliver improved user experiences.

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Digital media is arguably making its analog counterparts less important. For instance, an old vinyl album or rare CD can be streamed -- the physical version just takes up space and can be a burden. The same can be said for books -- having a house full of bound sheets of paper is sort of pointless nowadays -- get a Kindle, y'all.

One thing that is not easily represented in the digital world is paintings. Sure, you can always view a captured image of a work of art, such as the Mona Lisa, on your computer, but it was never the same. Why? You need to experience it in person to truly see the detail, like brush strokes. This is changing, however, thanks to Google's new invention -- the Art Camera.

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Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge are slowly but surely losing ground in the desktop space. In fact, according to web analytics company StatCounter, for the first time Mozilla Firefox has more usage share than the two other browsers combined. However, Google Chrome still reigns supreme

Google Chrome is now the most popular desktop browser according to all the major web analytics companies. NetMarketShare was the last one to crown it king earlier this month -- Google Chrome surpassed Internet Explorer in its rankings with a 41.71 percent usage share to the latter's 41.33 percent.

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Eassos PartitionGuru Free is an easy-to-use hard drive manager which can create, resize, split, extend, clone or recover partitions. The latest edition can also format multiple USB keys simultaneously and automatically, without any user intervention at all.

Making it so easy to wipe storage devices could be a little dangerous, of course, but fortunately the program only wipes empty drives by default.

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This morning I wrote a report on how just a third of UK’s companies actually have a plan in place in case the country leaves the European Union, following the Brexit referendum in some six weeks’ time.

At the same time, Guardian reached out to UK’s unicorn companies -- those valued at more than a billion dollars -- about their opinion on the Brexit, and those that were willing to speak were firmly against the UK leaving the European Union.

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Endpoint protection is still vital for enterprises of all sizes. Dell is launching new security products aimed at giving businesses advanced threat prevention for Windows Embedded thin clients and virtual desktops.

Using IP from its award-winning Dell Data Protection portfolio of security solutions, Dell is applying its endpoint security expertise beyond the PC to the thin client and virtual machines. The company claims this will give customers an industry-first approach to comprehensively securing their data.

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Lenovo has taken the wraps off the new Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus at a media event in New Delhi, India. The pair is meant to appeal to phablet enthusiasts, featuring a large display, big battery and competitive specs at a price tag similar to that of the previous generation.

Moto G4 has grown in size compared to Moto G3. For the latest generation, Lenovo has opted for a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 1,080 by 1,920, with power coming from a 1.5 GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor and 3,000 mAh battery. The Plus model, despite what its name implies, is no bigger, but adds some nice extras.

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Many customers of Microsoft's Xbox gaming platform utilize the company's Live service so that they can play against others from the comfort of their own home. And, like any service, when you set up an account you choose a user ID, in this case, it’s a gamertag, which is what you become known by when online.

Many of these handles have been used up over the years, and some of those early ones have since become inactive for a variety of reasons. Now Microsoft is going to be opening those monikers up again to allow other customers to grab them.

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So there I was, typing away after using a couple of coffees to make myself feel vaguely human. Up popped a notification from Skype. This was odd. I don’t use Skype because I absolutely loathe it. The app isn’t even running. Nonetheless, there it is: a notification telling me that I have been signed into my account.

While I don’t use Skype, I do have a Skype username from back in days gone by -- but this wasn't the account Windows 10 told me I had been signed into. Rather it appeared that Microsoft had created a secondary Skype account for me (gee, thanks...) based on my name and decided to randomly sign me in to foist the terrible messaging app on me. What gives?

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Industry predictions suggest that the world cloud market will exceed $250 billion by 2020, but a new report shows that as cloud investment grows so do security concerns.

Crowd Research Partners has released the results of its 2016 Cloud Security Spotlight Report, created in conjunction with leading cloud security vendors Alien Vault, Bitglass, Cato Networks, CloudPassage, Dell Software, Dome9 Security, IMMUNIO, (ISC)2 and Randtronics.

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