Patent troll claims HTTPS ownership, lawsuits ensue
Ah, don’t you love the smell of patent trolls in the morning?
In the latest news regarding these wonderful creatures, it was unveiled this week that a Texas company called CryptoPeak Solutions has sued basically everyone, everywhere, for using the HTTPS protocol.
Facebook's Live Video is no longer a celebrity-only feature
The ability to broadcast live video on Facebook is something that has previously only been available to celebrities. It's not being made available to everyone -- yet -- but a handful of lucky users are being given the chance to try it out ahead of a wider rollout.
Starting today, some US iPhone users will be able to live broadcast to their friends and family. This is Facebook's bid to take on Twitter's Periscope, but the social network has more to announce. On top of Live Video, photo collages are also being unveiled as a new way to show off your snaps.
Tablets are doing worse than laptops
Notebooks still have a straw to hold on to, while tablets seem to have broken theirs and continue to sink, according to a forecast by global market research firm TrendForce.
TrendForce says total notebook shipments will drop 6.4 per cent for 2015, to about 164.4 million units. The company’s analyst Anita Wang believes shipments will recover in 2016, mostly because of branded vendors, such as Xiaomi and Huawei entering the market.
Windows 10 Mobile now available for Xiaomi Mi 4
Now that Windows 10 Mobile is ready for prime time, having launched alongside Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL earlier this month, Xiaomi has released a fresh build for its Mi 4 smartphone. The device received support for Windows 10 Mobile earlier this year, with a developer preview arriving in June.
The Windows 10 Mobile build that was just released is only for the 4G LTE version of the smartphone. And, also, Xiaomi warns that there might be "some unpredicted bugs still".
Amazon takes its Fire tablets to China, adds new features
Amazon recently released its latest tablets, the Fire 10 and Fire 8, as well as a smaller $50 model, all of which sold very well over the big shopping days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. These were among several Amazon products that did well over that period.
Now the company is updating the software across the entire line, bringing several enhancements to the tablets. It's also putting a device on sale in China for the first time, so there's plenty of news out of the Washington-based company.
Server shipments, vendor revenue go up in Q3 2015
In the third quarter of 2015, worldwide server shipments grew 9.2 percent from the third quarter of 2014, while vendor revenue increased 7.5 percent year over year, Gartner has reported.
From the regional standpoint, Asia/Pacific grew the most in shipments, with a 23.8 percent increase. The region also posted the highest vendor revenue growth at 25.4 percent for the period.
Apple becomes open source champion with Swift programming language
One by one, companies are starting to embrace open source more and more. Microsoft has been a proponent of Linux and other open source solutions, surprising many in those communities.
Now, it is Apple's turn. Today, the company run by Tim Cook announces that its Swift programming language is now open source. No, this is not Apple's first embrace of open source, but it could be one of its most significant.
Data discovery solution made available free on MS Office
Businesses are increasingly keen to unlock the insights contained within their data. But the tools to do this are often expensive and complex, putting them beyond the reach of smaller organizations.
Analytics specialist BeyondCore has announced a collaboration with Microsoft to make its data discovery solution available to Office users for free.
Speccy restores compatibility with Windows 10, supports latest Intel processors
Piriform has released Speccy 1.29, a new version of its free Windows system information tool. The headline new feature in version 1.29 -- also available as a standalone portable build -- is improved support for the latest generation of Intel processors.
Speccy 1.29 also strengthens hardware detection, restores compatibility with the latest build of Windows 10 and updates its hardware detection algorithm.
New privacy platform protects enterprise communication
Enterprise customers are increasingly concerned about the security of their mobile communications, as well as the ability to deliver auditing and compliance information.
Silent Circle, the Swiss company behind the privacy focused Blackphone, is launching its Enterprise Privacy Platform a set of secure software, services and devices designed to deliver privacy to business and government organizations of all sizes.
Signal Desktop first beta now available
Edward Snowden-endorsed developer Open Whisper Systems has announced the first public beta of Signal Desktop, a secure chat app for Chrome.
The new release enables users of its popular mobile app, Signal Private Messenger, to carry on a conversation across even more devices.
Instart Logic and Verisign team up to fight DDoS attacks
DDoS activity is at its highest for two years according to Verisign's Q3 2015 DDoS Trends Report, and as the number and sophistication of attacks increases, companies are recognizing the need for better security.
Application delivery specialist Instart Logic has announced a partnership with Verisign to offer customers an advanced DDoS scrubbing capability.
Shutterstock Tab brings beautiful images to every new Chrome tab
Stock photo vendor Shutterstock has released Shutterstock Tab, a free Chrome extension which displays a gorgeous image as a background for every new Chrome tab.
As a bonus, there’s also a clock, a 5-day weather forecast, and a tiny toolbar with links to recently visited sites.
Google becomes the largest non-power company consumer of renewable energy
This week saw the big climate conference in Paris, bringing together numerous world leaders to discuss the changes occurring in our world. What we hope to get is improvement in the increasing amount of climate change, an effort to protect the environment for us and the wildlife that depend on it.
One answer is now coming from Google, which has long been a proponent of the need for change. The search giant has long backed renewable energy and now it claims to be the largest consumer of it. Well, the largest that isn't classified as a power company.
Record desktop activity to tiny self-playing EXEs with Screen2SWF
Windows screen recorder Screen2SWF, once a $49 commercial product, is now available for free.
With so much freeware competition around already you might be thinking, "so what?", but wait: the program does have some interesting features which help it stand out from the crowd.
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