Latest Technology News

As thoughts turn to the New Year, what better gift to present your PC with than a complete system cleanup? On December 30, you’ll be able to do just that thanks to our 24-hour giveaway, which is a year’s license for Advanced SystemCare 9 PRO.

That’s right -- we’re giving you a full year’s license for the current version of Advanced SystemCare Pro 9! This package contains an entire library of essential tools to help you clean up, optimize, maintain and secure your PC.

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We have all seen hobbyists and IoT developers working on computers on a board such as Raspberry Pi and Arduino that run Linux, but now there is a full computer on a board that runs Windows 10.

This mighty processor board that costs from $79 (£53) boasts the power to do anything that a PC can. This means it can create Office documents, run HD videos and behave exactly like a home PC.

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Lawsuits in the technology world are so friggin' tiring. Yes, patents and copyrights are generally a positive, as it protects inventors from having their ideas and intellectual property stolen. Sadly nowadays, trolls have largely ruined the sanctity of the original intent. I'm not calling Oracle a troll per se, but suing Google over the use of Java APIs in Android seemed a bit silly to me. A jury and a judge agreed with my feeling on the matter, but their stances were later reversed. Ultimately, Oracle beat Google using the judicial system.

Today, Google announces that it will embrace OpenJDK in future Android releases. While this should avoid infringement against Oracle technologies, it is not clear if that is the motivator here. In other words, this could have been planned prior to the judgement against the search giant, or it could be related.

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These days you do not have to spend much to get a good smartphone. Using a Xiaomi Mi4c as my daily driver for the past couple of weeks has made it clear that you can get an impressive handset for just around $200. It is the sort of smartphone that makes you believe that you can have your cake and eat it too -- its specs read like those of some flagships while its price is similar to that of more affordable mid-rangers.

The software is pretty nice as well. Unlike some other interpretations of Android, Xiaomi's MIUI looks good and adds some worthwhile changes that overall add up to a solid user experience. Now, let's take a closer look at Mi4c.

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Almost eight years ago, Bruce Schneier wrote a great article about the problems of ROI calculation for cybersecurity spending within organizations. Since then, both annual spending on cybersecurity and the cost of global cybercrime have significantly increased.

Despite that organizations increased their information security budgets by 24 percent in 2016, many security officers still have to justify to their management every extra thousand spent on cybersecurity. Traditionally, Europe is more conservative than US, and many more European security officers are asked to reduce their initial cybersecurity budgets by removing some items or replacing them with less expensive alternatives.

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Microsoft, like many companies, ships some of its products with disk encryption and that's a good thing given the state of today's world. The vast majority of customers have nothing to hide, but they also don't wish to be watched by the prying eyes of governments and others.

However, it is being reported that the Windows maker is storing encryption keys in the cloud. While that doesn't necessarily mean a problem, it's also a bit scary because of the potential for what can go wrong -- a Murphy's Law scenario. This issue was first reported by The Intercept, which notes that your keys "may" be stored in the cloud -- not everyone's are.

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When you think of a gaming PC, two things probably come to mind -- Microsoft Windows and desktop computers. In other words, gamers don't typically target laptops for playing their favorite games, and even when some do, they will likely aim for Windows 7, 8, or 10. Thanks to Steam, however, Linux-based operating systems are a legitimate option for gaming.

If you want a Linux-based gaming laptop, your choices are slim. Yes, you can buy a Windows laptop and replace the operating system with Ubuntu or another OS, but that isn't the best experience. Ideally, you want a machine that was designed and sold with Linux in mind. Enter the Ubuntu-powered System76 Oryx Pro. This beast of a gaming laptop can be configured with some jaw-dropping specs. The one I have been testing features an Intel Skylake Core i7 processor, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, NVMe SSD and NVIDIA graphics, including G-SYNC. Are you salivating yet? Read on for more specs and my impressions.

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The first generation of Google Glass spectacularly failed to get off the ground despite a long beta period. The second generation is on the cards, and it has an enterprise focus which serves only to make the hardware even more appealing. There's no release date, or even a vague schedule for release, yet, but images of the next version of Google Glass have appeared online.

A new filing with the FCC shows just what we can expect from the next version of Google Glass, and it's extremely promising. While there's no suggestion of a consumer model being released, what we learn about the enterprise edition will serve only to make it more appealing to the masses -- great looks, a foldable design, and a larger display. Will Google bow to the pressure that's almost certain to mount and try again with a consumer version?

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Google Security Research has criticized AVG for "force installing" AVG Web Tuneup, a Chrome extension which could be exploited to reveal "browsing history and other data to the internet".

And it only gets worse, the report claims.

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Earlier in this NFL season TuneIn landed a deal with the league to bring listeners radio broadcasts of all the games, which likely beefed up its subscriber numbers. Other sports were already participating in the broadcasts and now you can add one more to that list.

The National Hockey League is arriving on the streaming network, bringing radio broadcasts of the games for your favorite NHL teams from the US and Canada.

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In general, cloud penetration across the enterprise in terms of workloads being completed continues to be at a relatively low level, with many analysts firms reporting that penetration is at rates of less than 10 percent.

That said, the journey has begun in most organizations and Ovum has identified that nearly 75 percent of organizations will adopt some hybrid cloud strategy by 2016.

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The first HAMR hard disk drives are set to appear on the market in early 2018. The disks, which will be built by storage company Seagate, will be given to select customers and used as testing devices in late 2016 or early 2017, before shipping out to other consumers a year later.

The HAMR technology, (heat-assisted magnetic recording) promises to increase capacities of HDDs significantly in the coming years. You might wonder why HDD is still a thing when SSD is doing such a good job, but HDD is still used by millions of people and across virtually all data centers worldwide.

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It’s understandable that Microsoft would want to push Windows 10 as much as possible, particularly as the rate of upgrades has been slowing recently. It must be a source of frustration to the company that users of Windows 7 and 8.1 appear so reluctant to switch, even though the upgrade for them is free.

In an effort to guide people on to Windows 10, Microsoft has been using increasingly aggressive methods, including pre-loading the installation files on to users’ systems, regardless of whether they want the new OS or not, and removing the option to opt-out of the upgrade. In the new year Microsoft intends to ramp up its push further, and joining the Windows Weekly team for a question and answer session, Microsoft Marketing Chief Chris Capossela made no apologies for his company’s approach which, he says, is being done to get users to a "safer place".

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Using strong, secure passwords is the best way to protect your online accounts from attack. And on December 29th we’re making it easier than ever, by giving away a $32.99 1-year license for the password manager F-Secure KEY Premium for FREE!

The program generates secure passwords for your web accounts, on demand, and saves them to an encrypted database on servers hosted in Finland.

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This is a personal account of my experience of depression and how I feel technology has both helped me, and held me back. I've been depressed for just about as long as I can remember, but it's only in the last six months or so that I decided I needed help and thought it was time to do something. 30-odd years is a long time to feel like Atlas bearing the weight of the world.

Having made this decision, technology was something of a lifeline... specifically, and perhaps oddly, Facebook. The social network made it possible for me to communicate with friends when the mere idea of actually speaking to someone seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. It broke down barriers of time and distance, eased my embarrassment, stopped me from feeling awkward for crying (although even writing that brought the tears welling up, and I feel like an idiot, albeit in private).

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