The Amazon Echo is in Jeopardy! Can you help get it out?
The Amazon Echo can do a lot of things, from playing music to giving you the news and weather, even controlling your lights. But there are many other tricks as well, and new ones are added all the time. The latest comes with the new update to the Alexa app.
Tap the menu button at the top left and choose skills -- there's quite a few and they are listed alphabetically. Scroll far enough and you'll find this latest entry, the game Jeopardy!
Tech firms ready to work with US spy agencies to combat IS and online terrorism
Silicon Valley met with the US government on Friday to discuss how to tackle online terrorist propaganda from the likes of IS. At a closed-door meeting, Tim Cook and representative of Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and other tech firms spoke with White House officials to try to find a way to combat terrorists on the web.
Joined by the likes of the NSA and FBI, the technology firms, and the Obama administration are seeking ways to stop terrorist propaganda being disseminated online. IS has already proved itself to be a masterful manipulator of the media, and has successfully used social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to get its message out.
Adobe preparing fixes for the Windows and OS X versions of Acrobat and Reader
If you're an advanced user utilizing Adobe products then you likely know the inherent perils of some of the company's platforms. Adobe has gone as far as to instigate its own version of Patch Tuesday, and that will be rolling around in just a few days.
It's aimed at fixing critical flaws in Acrobat and Reader across both the Windows and Apple platforms. These aren't new offenders, as Adobe software has been plagued by problems for sometime now. However, like Windows, it's partially because it's a major target -- the majority of people use Reader for opening PDFs, despite there being very good alternatives available.
Dell expands Latitude lineup with new laptops and hybrid devices
Dell has announced an expanded lineup of Latitude laptops, 2-in-1 devices and monitors at CES 2016 in Las Vegas. The new Latitude products are: Latitude 13 7000, Latitude 12 7000 and Latitude 11 5000.
The Latitude 3000, 5000 and 7000 Series have been completely refreshed with thin and light designs, excellent efficiency and powerful processing options.
TP-LINK Talon AD7200 is the world's first 802.11ad Multi-band Wi-Fi Router
While Wi-Fi is ubiquitous nowadays, it is still a miraculous technology. If you grew up with it, you may take it for granted. Me? My early computing involved chatting on IRC using unreliable dial-up connections. Connecting to the Internet without wires is magic as far as I am concerned.
The technologies behind Wi-Fi and networking has improved dramatically throughout the years -- faster, longer range and, more reliable. If you just bought an 802.11ac router, please know that it is no longer cutting-edge. Why? Well, today, TP-LINK announces the Talon AD7200 -- the world's first 802.11ad Multi-band Wi-Fi Router, and with eight antennas, it looks absolutely wild. It offers a mind-boggling 4.6Gbps using 60GHz bands!
Microsoft Intune update will improve Windows 10 support
Microsoft will release a service update to its Intune management software within the next week, introducing a number of new features and enhancements.
A large part of the update will be dedicated to Windows 10 support, ensuring that Intune is optimized for a number of features native to Microsoft’s new operating system.
Microsoft will sell mobile data plans to Windows 10 users
Windows 10 users will soon be able to purchase mobile data plans directly from Microsoft. The software giant says that this option will be introduced to make it easy for its customers to have Internet access in areas without Wi-Fi coverage.
The mobile data plans will be offered via the Cellular Data app that Microsoft has published in Windows Store. To take advantage of this offer, Windows 10 users will need to get a Microsoft SIM card first.
If you're fine with Microsoft's approach to privacy in Windows 10, you're out of touch
Yeah, I'm going to bang that drum again. We've talked endlessly about privacy and telemetry in Windows 10. Endlessly. It's brought up some interesting issues for debates, led to comparisons between Microsoft and Google, and lots and lots of lots of bile. A case in point is an article from dear, dear Mr Ed Bott over on ZDNet. Mr Bott refers, subtweet style, to my recent article about Microsoft recording how long people are using Windows 10.
He refers -- albeit indirectly -- to me (and writers like me who question Microsoft) as a "dedicated Microsoft hater" and a "clueless writer" peddling in clickbait. He suggests I'm not interested in facts; this despite the fact I have gone out of my way to garner such delights from Microsoft. Bott completely -- COMPLETELY -- misses the point. I can only hope he does so on purpose because otherwise he just sounds disingenuous and a bit stupid. The problem here is not that Microsoft is gathering data (as it is perfectly entitled to do so), but the lack of transparency surrounding it. Microsoft does nothing to help itself.
Australian university to hand out Surface 3 to students
Microsoft is doing its best to push its line of Surface products out there to businesses and students, even getting prominent placement in NFL games (though announcers still sometimes refer to them as iPads). The Surface Pro is on its 4th generation, but for those who don't need quite as much power, there's the Surface 3 which has a smaller screen and isn't as capable, but which costs a fraction of the price of its bigger siblings and still runs Windows 10.
It's perfect for education uses, which is why Western Sydney University in Australia is handing out 5,000 Surface 3 slates to its students.
Capture desktop activity with Automatic Screenshotter
Taking regular screenshots of the desktop sounds like a smart way to record what’s happening on your PC. Until you try it, and are left sorting through folders packed with pointless, near-identical images.
Automatic Screenshotter is different. It doesn’t just blindly capture images at fixed intervals, but also uses a host of rules and options to ensure it only captures the most relevant screens for you.
The State Of Wearables
I have been skeptical about the mass market potential of wrist-worn wearables ever since Google unveiled Android Wear in 2014. Since then, we have seen a number of high profile smartwatch launches, including the Apple Watch and the recent Fitbit Blaze (which was greeted with an 18 percent decline in FitBit's stock price).
However, the hunt for a killer app continues and I have yet to come across a relevant use case for mass market users.
Microsoft and Rambus team up for quantum computing research
Researchers at Microsoft are partnering with Rambus in order to evaluate the future memory requirements of quantum computing.
The two technology firms will share their resources and expertise in order to determine the types of computer architecture that will provide the biggest improvement to memory capabilities and overall system performance. Gary Bronner, vice president of Rambus Labs said that existing architectures are struggling to meet the increasing demands of real-time data consumption.
Best Windows apps this week
One-hundred and sixty-two in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 in the past seven days.
The week has been rather slow in terms of new releases and updates, but that was to be expected following Christmas.
Insiders should see new Windows 10 builds next week and faster releases through 2016
The first week of the New Year is out of the way and Windows Insiders are eagerly awaiting the first Windows 10 build of 2016. The waiting may be over soon, as Microsoft says that it should be just "a few more days" before testers' patience is rewarded.
It's only a few weeks since the Redstone branch of Windows 10 became public, and Microsoft's Gabe Aul suggests that a new build could be on the way next week. The Windows 10 team just needs time to recover from Christmas and the New Year, and then we should also start to see more frequent build releases.
Predictions 5 & 6: Drones and driverless cars? Not this year
When it comes to predictions it is often easiest just to take some really popular new technology and point out the obvious time it will take to be actually adopted. You could say I’m doing that here with drone deliveries and driverless cars, but I like to think my value-added is explaining why these will take so much longer than some people expect.
Amazon.com has been making a lot of noise about using small helicopter drones to deliver packages. I’m not here to say this is an impossible task or that drones won’t at some point be used for this purpose, but what I am saying is that it won’t happen this year, won’t happen next year, and in any true volume won’t happen even five or 10 years from now.
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