Latest Technology News

Facebook can send out quite a lot of emails to its users in the course of an average day. Notifications can fly in thick and fast letting you know about friend requests, replies to your posts, messages from contacts, and the like, and it's possible -- nay likely -- that these will contain delicate personal information.

To help calm the fear of those with privacy concerns ("why are they using Facebook?", you might well ask) Facebook today announces the introduction of OpenPGP encryption support. This gives users the opportunity to protect communication from Facebook by encrypting it so it cannot be read by unauthorized parties.

Developing mobile and web-based continues to present a major challenge for enterprises, especially with regard to the costs associated with infrastructure and DevOps.

A new survey of 200 technology decision makers by mobile backend-as-a-service (MBaaS) company moBack shows that 80 percent of respondents, including both large and small businesses, consider mobile app development very important and essential for their business.

Staff at tech giant IBM are set to use Apple Mac machines following the company’s one-year partnership with Apple for the creation of business-centric apps for the iOS.

IBM employees will be given the option to choose between a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or traditional PC for their new workstations and will be part of the company’s choose your own device policy, according to the company’s recent memo.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus announces today that it is slashing $50 off the retail price of its flagship One smartphone in seven global flash sales it has planned for the phone this month. The first flash sale begins today, and the rest will run through this week.

Often referred to as the flagship killer smartphone, the 16GB Silk White variant of OnePlus One will now be available for purchase at $249 (previously $299), while the top-of-the-line 64GB Sandstone Black will be available at $299.

The excellent free Windows network monitor GlassWire is now also available in Basic ($49), Pro ($99) and Elite ($199) versions.

All three builds have extra security features. "Ask to connect" blocks new network connections until they’re approved by you; "Lock down mode" blocks everything until you turn it off; a Wi-Fi monitor lists everything on your network and alerts you when devices join or leave.

Last August, Russian technology startup Eltechs, announced virtual machine software which could run x86 apps on ARM-based Mini PCs. It required the host device to have an ARMv7 processor, and while the list of such hardware includes Raspberry Pi 2, the emulator wasn’t optimized for it.

Fortunately, that’s all changed as Eltechs has just improved Raspberry Pi 2 support in the latest version of its ExaGear Desktop software, and also made it compatible with older Raspberry Pi models.

ASUS announced a bunch of new devices today at the Computex 2015 trade show, held in its home market of Taiwan. The most interesting are the Transformer Book T100HA Windows 10 tablet, that could turn out to be a solid alternative to Microsoft's Surface 3, and a $299 laptop, that rivals Chromebooks. Also new, but likely more intriguing, is the second-generation ZenWatch.

ZenWatch 2, as it is called, runs Android Wear, just like its predecessor -- albeit a fresh release -- but improves upon the original formula by launching in two different sizes, three case colors, with 18 different strap materials and color options to choose from, and a more refined designed overall. Considering those key features alone, it is easy to see that ASUS is gunning for Apple Watch.

Business intelligence tools are usually thought of in terms of marketing and strategic decision making. Using them for other tasks like recruitment has usually meant links to other products and significant manual input.

Now though recruitment software specialist Gild is launching a BI solution specifically for hiring, applying predictive analytics and insight to every stage of the process, delivering 360-degree information and customized reports to help every make better decisions.

We now know that there are less than two months to wait until Windows 10 is launched. If you have been working your way through the preview builds, you'll already have a pretty good idea of what to expect in terms of new features -- Cortana, Start menu, notification center, virtual desktops, Continuum, cross-device experience, Microsoft Edge and so on -- but what about the things you're going to lose when upgrading from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1?

The delivery of Windows 10 is not just about bringing new features and tools to desktop, tablets, and laptops; there are also a number of things that are simply going to disappear. Not all of this will matter to everyone, but the stripping out of certain features will come as a blow to some, and it's best to be prepared ahead of time.

Bluetooth speakers are a dime a dozen nowadays. For such a speaker to stand out, it has to have something to differentiate it from competitors. While exceptional sound quality is always the goal, it is sadly not enough anymore.

The onanoff SoundCover for iPad Air piqued my interest because it offered a unique design. Quite frankly, the concept was so odd, that I didn't even understand it at first. As you can see in the below unboxing video, I assumed that it would prop up the iPad Air with a Surface-like stand, while sending the sound through the rear. This is not the case.

Popular peer-to-peer VPN service Hola has become one of the most popular extensions for web users for its free and easy-to-use service, but it looks like the company has been using bandwidth from users for illegal DDoS attacks, amongst other things.

Image board 8chan first reported multiple DDoS attack from Hola, claiming it used an affiliated Luminati network to send the huge traffic spikes. DDoS attacks have been a frequent issue for 8chan, as it struggles to build reliable servers and infrastructure.

What do you do with the SATA hard drive you took out of that old machine you threw away a couple of years ago? One answer is that you get hold of an external enclosure and use it as an archive or for making backups.

Inateck's latest external enclosures allow you to do just that for both 3.5- and 2.5-inch drives. Let's take the larger one first, the FE3001 is USB 3.0 for fast transfers and the case is made of sturdy aluminum with a smart, grained finish. There's an external power supply, USB cable and everything else you need -- screws, rubber pads and even a small screwdriver -- is included in the box.

Taking a leaf out of Facebook's, er, book, Google today unveils a revamped privacy checkup page. Google and privacy are not words that belong in the same sentence for many people, but the search giant wants to change that. Users are invited to answer a series of simple questions to control how their data is stored, collected, and shared.

The company wants to place users back in control, and at the heart of today's announcement is the My Account page which is now central to configuring privacy settings. In the interests of transparency, Google has also set up a page dedicated to revealing how and why data is collected.

With Windows 10 becoming available to consumers as early as July 29, manufacturers are rushing to announce their first products powered by Microsoft's upcoming operating system. Lenovo unveiled its business-oriented ThinkPad 10 slate last week, and now it is ASUS' turn to join the Windows 10 bandwagon.

The Taiwanese maker has announced Transformer Book T100HA, a Windows 10 tablet that is designed to double as a small laptop replacement with the addition of a dedicated keyboard. So far, Transformer Book T100HA looks like the closest competitor that Microsoft's Surface 3 has.

After months of not really doing much, Windows 8.x finally gained a decent amount of usage share in May, according to web analytics firm NetMarketShare.

This gain came at the expense of Windows 7 and Windows XP, which both lost share, resulting in Windows 8.x leapfrogging XP for the first time in six months. The last time the tiled OS was more popular than XP was in December 2014. At the time a run of usage gains lead me to predict it was on course to break the 20 percent barrier. Yeah, talk about being overly optimistic.