Google fails Gmail users with misguided 'Mic Drop' April Fool's prank
As a tech enthusiast, I dread the stupid April Fool's Day every year. What should probably be a fun day for children to pull safe and respectful pranks, has evolved into a day when companies announce fake products. Is it all in good fun? Yes, but some of these companies are publicly traded and worth billions of dollars. It's time to grow up. Some of us are interested in legit news.
One such company, Google, provides services to billions of people -- including some for business use. And so it has a responsibility to its users, and shareholders, to not cause harm with goofy jokes. Today, the search giant does exactly that, however, with a prank called "Mic Drop". In fact, the prank was so misguided, that Google has since pulled it.
Windows 10 continues its slow march to desktop domination
At Build 2016 Microsoft revealed that Windows 10 is now on 270 million devices. By switching the new operating system to a recommended update, the software giant has managed to add 70 million devices to its tally in just under 3 months. An achievement somewhat tainted by the fact that not every upgrade was actually wanted nor knowingly actioned, but that’s still a very respectable number to crow about.
With it being the first of the month, NetMarketShare has released its latest usage figures for the various flavors of Windows and, as you’d expect, Windows 10 shows the most growth.
Best Windows apps this week
One-hundred and seventy-four 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.
Microsoft's Build 2016 conference is still underway, and if you are interested in what is coming to Windows 10 later this year, I suggest you check out our coverage here on BetaNews.
Adjust PDF brightness, contrast and gamma with YACReader
Text-based PDFs are generally easy to read, with high contrast, crisp fonts, and a zoom tool if you need to check the small print.
PDFs of scanned images can be very different, especially if they’re old documents, maybe handwritten, and have faded over the years.
How UK tech companies could comply with Snoopers Charter
It would be hugely ironic if the UK government’s plans to help it seize back control of the digital age actually pushed technology firms even further down the path of encryption.
The second version of the Investigatory Powers Bill -- or Snoopers Charter, as it has been colloquially dubbed -- was published by the Home Office on March 1. This came in light of criticism of the first version -- published in December -- from three parliamentary joint committees: the Science and Technology Committee, the Intelligence and Security Committee, and the Joint Committee for the bill itself -- which made some 86 recommendations alone.
Many Brits now do not trust online banking
Almost half of people living in the UK (48 percent) fear either their identities, or their banking data will be stolen. Those are the results of a new survey from financial technology company Intelligent Environments. According to the report, the fear is well founded, with 20 percent of Britons being victims to some type of cyber-crime, either identity theft or bank details theft.
The report reveals a cybersecurity map of Britain. In it, it says that Birmingham is most concerned with cybersecurity, with 57 percent fearing banking information theft, and 59 percent identity theft. Birmingham is followed by Newcastle and Cardiff.
An Apple 40th birthday reflection
Summer 1984, Chapel Hill, N.C., I learned something about prejudice and discrimination in America and saw my first Macintosh. Strangely, looking back at Apple, which celebrates its 40th birthday today, the two things connect.
As I reflected in Jan. 18, 2004, personal post: "Racism and Naiveté", I never thought much about skin color growing up in a region of America where most everyone is Caucasian. Northern Maine is a white wonderland for more than abundant snowfall. Strangely, though, my best friends had last names like Chung and Zivic. The local Air Force base, Loring, added color to the populace, and when it came to people I was decidedly colorblind.
The right PC can improve job satisfaction
Do you want satisfied workers? Give them a well-designed PC, a good and secure mobile device, and let them work when they want to, where they want to. Those are, in a nutshell, the results of a new research by Redshift Research, which had polled 1,016 people, across France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.
For 90 percent of IT decision makers, device security is a current concern, because in the last 12 months, a quarter of Europe’s businesses have been breached. That has resulted in less than a third (32 percent) being completely confident in the level of security offered by their current devices.
Investigate your PC’s RAM use with ATM
ATM is a portable tool which gives an in-depth, low-level look at your PC's system memory use.
Forget the usual Task Manager clones, this is more about memory standby lists, the system file cache, Superfetch performance, page file effectiveness, even (on Windows 10) memory compression.
Acer unveils 'Chromebase for meetings' all-in-one with videoconferencing focus
While many people view Chrome OS as nothing more than a basic operating system for home users, it is actually much more. In fact, the Linux-based machines can work beautifully for businesses too -- depending on needs, of course. As more and more solutions become web-based, a traditional Windows/Office solution from Microsoft becomes less of a necessity.
One way that Chrome OS shines in business environments, is videoconferencing and collaboration with Hangouts. Google's 'Chromebox for meetings' has proven to be a great option in this regard for some companies, thanks to low cost and ease of use. Today, business decision-makers that prefer all-in-one solutions to diminutive desktops gain a new option -- Acer's Chromebase for meetings. With an integrated display, this all-in-one is inexpensive, attractive, and extremely easy to setup and deploy.
Forget extensions, built-in ad blocking is coming to Microsoft Edge - [UPDATE... no it's not!]
One of the first browser add-ons many people install to improve their online experience is Adblock Plus or something similar. Until recently, Microsoft Edge's lack of support for add-ons put off a lot of would-be users, but reports from Build 2016 suggest that native ad blocking is on its way to the Internet Explorer successor.
Adblock Plus is coming to Edge, but built-in ad blocking would negate the need for such an add-on. A slide shown off and snapped at a Build presentation shows that the next version of Edge, in response to user feedback, will feature ad blocking capabilities. There's no word on delivery timescale, but the upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update would seem a likely candidate. [Update: we now have a clarifying statement from Microsoft that puts rather a different spin on things].
Can’t afford Dyson's Pure Cool Link? Try the Mi Air Purifier instead [Review]
Having revolutionized the world of vacuum cleaning, James Dyson moved his attention to hand drying, heating and cooling. The latest gadget to roll off the Dyson production line is the IoT-enabled Pure Cool Link air purifier. Like just about every Dyson product out there, reviews are almost universally positive, but there is the question of the price tag.
The Pure Cool Link comes at something of a premium (be prepared to part with around $500), but it's certainly not a unique product. Dyson may have blazed a trail in many areas, but when it comes to air purifiers, it wasn't the first, and it certainly isn’t the cheapest. Take, for instance the Mi Air Purifier from Xiaomi. It's a relative snip at just $200, and the lower price tag doesn’t mean missing out on the Internet of Things.
HyperX unveils Cloud Revolver gaming headset for PC, Mobile, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4
Gaming headsets are a strange thing. On the one hand, they can provide a more immersive experience, allowing you to better hear in-game audio and communicate with other respectful players. On the other, it can cause you to communicate with disrespectful gamers too. Racist, sexist and threatening voices can really ruin what should be a fun game.
Ultimately, the pros outweigh the cons, as there should be -- hopefully -- more nice people participating in in-game chat than the evil and angry ones. HyperX is already known for its quality hardware -- including its well-respected headsets -- and now it introduces a new one, called Cloud Revolver. This gaming headset should work brilliantly for movies and music too. Not to mention, it looks totally bad-ass!
Enterprises should prioritize availability, not backups
With today being World Backup Day 2016, many companies are rightly preaching the importance of regular backups. However, Veeam is bucking the trend by saying that -- in the enterprise space -- just backing up is no longer enough.
The company thinks that the most important question for enterprises now should be "are we always available?" and has thus declared today as "World Availability Day". The argument is that for consumers, just having backups in place is sufficient, but enterprises are expected to be up and running 24/7 and downtime is no longer tolerated in today’s fast-paced world.
LookingGlass releases new threat intelligence platform
Using threat intelligence helps enterprises to improve decision making when it comes to managing security incidents and enforcing policy.
Threat defense specialist LookingGlass Cyber Solutions is looking to improve the way analysts and security operators interpret threats targeting their organizations with the launch of its new ScoutPrime threat intelligence management platform.
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