Latest Technology News

One-hundred and sixty-three 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.

Just like last week, the second week of the year 2016 was slow in terms of new releases or updates.

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Netflix is set to clamp down on VPNs and proxy tools used to access its services. A large proportion of Netflix content is region specific, and to get around licensing issues it has become increasingly common for people to spoof their location so they can watch their desired videos.

Netflix says it is doing what it can to ensure that people around the world have access to the same content, but until this is officially the case, the company is looking to enforce geographic restrictions more stringently. In the coming weeks, anyone who uses a proxy is likely to find it impossible to access content that is not licensed for viewing in their country.

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It’s been a busy year for security firms everywhere -- cyber-attacks, malware, ransomware and other malicious online behavior reached new heights in 2015.

Those are the results of a report by Bromium, a company which deals in threat isolation in service of data breach prevention. Its report, entitled Endpoint Exploitation Trends 2015 analyzed the security risks of popular websites and software.

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It appears that AMD is looking to expand into other areas of the processor chip market, after announcing its first ARM-based processor for enterprise customers.

Named Opteron A1100, the processor is based on the reduced instruction set computing (RISC) CPU design strategy that dominates the mobile market due to its reduced power consumption.

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The wild card games are out of the way now and this weekend the NFL heads into the next round to find out which teams will square off in the respective championship matchups. Can the Patriots repeat? It's hard to say, especially since the squad limped into the playoffs, though a first week bye may have provided some recovery time.

If you aren't near a TV then you can still catch all of the action from Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and the rest. You'll be doing so via the radio broadcasts, but that's not too bad since you'll still have a play by play coverage option.

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My smartphone is my life. Understandably, some people will decry my love for an inanimate object, but it is my window to the world. Quite frankly, I know that I'm not alone with my feeling towards the device. Between things like social media, news and email, to name a few, it is my constant companion. It is an essential tool for both business and personal needs.

While my iPhone 6s Plus has great battery life, few smartphones are up to the demands of active users. This is why USB battery packs are so popular nowadays. Hell, even Apple recently released a battery case. Today, SCOSCHE announces the goBAT 12000 Rugged portable backup battery. While the 12,000mAh product is not unique in its function or capacity, its rugged nature makes it very intriguing.

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Slack is the current communication darling for many small and medium businesses. The SMB-focused communication and collaboration solution is pretty simple -- it is similar to internet relay chat. Just like IRC, you join a channel and have text-based communications with other people. Where it differs, however, is its native ability to integrate with other tools. In other words, its potential is arguably greater than many competitors.

Today, Microsoft announces that it is enhancing Slack in a very special way. The Windows-maker releases a preview of Skype integration for the aforementioned communication solution. The team here at BetaNews uses Slack, so of course, I had to give it a go.

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Qualcomm and Japanese tech firm TDK Corporation have announced a joint venture, valued by Reuters at approximately $3 billion (£2bn).

The new company, named RF360 Holdings, will be building modules needed to communicate wirelessly with mobile devices and IoT devices. Those modules include the RF front-end (RFFE) and RF filters, the two companies said in a press release.

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Here’s something to make you feel really, really old. The first commercially available microprocessor chip was created in January 1986 -- exactly 30 years ago.

Back then, a team of Stanford University researchers and Silicon Valley veterans joined forces and created something that completely changed the way we see computers today. If it weren’t for these guys, who knows what modern computers would have looked like today.

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If you use Google Now launcher, you may have noticed that there is no option that can enable auto rotation. While this is not a problem when you are holding the device in portrait mode, it obviously makes landscape mode quite inconvenient at times.

The problem is that the launcher does not follow the Android-wide setting for auto rotation, and instead sticks to displaying everything in portrait mode. However, with a new update, that can now be changed.

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It seems everything can be put online these days -- lights, window shades, door locks, refrigerators, crock pots, you name it. One popular item being advertised vigorously in the US is the smart doorbell. It's a nice idea as it allows the user to see who's at the door without opening it. You can even talk to visitors and all of this is done from an app on the smartphone, even if you aren't actually home.

But, as we've seen with other IoT devices, this isn't always safe. These days even your daughter's Barbie doll has security concerns.

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Password management provider Dashlane has unveiled Dashlane 4.0 for Windows and Mac alongside Dashlane for iOS 4.0 and Dashlane for Android 4.0. The new release -- available in free and a paid-for Premium package -- shows off a brand new interface.

The new design -- which Dashlane claims has been "enhanced and optimized for convenience" shows off menu upgrades, improved search, wider support for its automatic password changer tool and support for five more languages.

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Continuum is one of the novel features that Microsoft has baked into Windows 10 Mobile. This enables users to essentially turn their smartphone into a more basic PC, using a Display Dock to connect the usual pieces of hardware -- a mouse, keyboard and monitor.

I say "more basic" because the device is severely limited in the number of apps it can display at the same time, as well as the type of apps that it can run: proper Windows software is out of the question with current hardware, only apps designed for Windows 10 Mobile are supported. But, now that Microsoft has introduced Continuum support in the Remote Desktop client preview, this feature is much more useful, and offers a more compelling argument for giving Windows 10 Mobile a chance.

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Manually shutting down a PC is easy enough -- assuming you can find the power menu, anyway -- but automating the process takes a little more work. And even if you spend a while playing with your power options, shutdown.exe and Task Scheduler, it still might not deliver what you need.

Fortunately there’s plenty of freeware around to help automate all your shutdown, restart, sleep and other power-related tasks.

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Microsoft plans to give Windows 10 users another option to speed up the process of unlocking their PCs. The software giant has introduced an app that enables remote authentication using a Windows 10 Mobile device.

Called Microsoft Authenticator, the app is currently undergoing internal testing and it seems to be designed with enterprise users in mind. Microsoft likely wants to make it easier to deal with complex passwords, which are recommended for meeting certain security guidelines.

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