Latest Technology News

Demand for Linux developers on the rise

The demand for Linux developers has jumped seven percent in comparison to last year, a study has shown.

The 2014 Linux Jobs Report shows that hiring managers at tech-powered companies are focusing more attention on Linux talent, and that’s reverberating in the market, with stronger than average salary increases to those working with the OS.

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Microsoft is like Aquaman -- uses Windows Defender super powers to kill evil Superfish

Lenovo is not having a good time right now, and rightfully so. Its inclusion of the Superfish adware on some of its consumer products has caused outrage and shock in the tech community. It is important to remember that Lenovo is not the super-villain in this story, Superfish is. In other words, the manufacturer was not intentionally malicious, but most likely misguided.

Today, Microsoft is a super hero -- Aquaman if you will -- and its super power is Windows Defender. Yes, Aquaman is destroying the Superfish villain, leaving Lenovo as the now-saved damsel in distress.

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Dear EE, it really shouldn't be this way

Dear EE,

We've known each other for a long time, you were called Orange when I first got to know you. A work colleague said we'd be good together and he was right. We've been through more than 12 years and five pay as you go mobile phones together. Then you decided to change your name to EE. What's in a name? I thought, a change to what was shown on the screen of course, but the service seemed the same as before so we carried on and I was still happy. Until I decided I needed a new phone.

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NetCrunch Tools is a free network troubleshooting toolkit

If your PC network is misbehaving then you could turn to the standard Windows troubleshooting tools. But they’re mostly console-based, not exactly comfortable or convenient to use, even if you can remember all their various command line switches.

NetCrunch Tools tries to make your life a little easier by combining 11 troubleshooting and information tools into a single straightforward application.

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IT departments take the lead in bringing cloud services to the enterprise

It’s no surprise that more and more organizations are using the cloud, but the latest State of the Cloud report from RightScale throws up some interesting trends.

The company surveyed 930 technical professionals across a broad cross-section of organizations about their adoption of cloud computing.

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Neptune Duo turns the smartphone/smartwatch relationship on its head

Neptune Duo is an interesting smartwatch/smartphone concept that flips our traditional view of the wearable tech on its head. Ask yourself: What’s a smartphone, and what’s a smartwatch?

Most of us (I dare say almost everyone) thinks of a smartphone as a mobile computer, small enough to fit in your pocket, but large enough to watch videos, even movies on it, write emails, chat, talk to your friends, all that jazz.

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Best Windows apps this week

One-hundred and nineteen in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows in the past seven days.

Our app of the week is Smash Cops Heat, an addictive fast paced arcade game in which you chase after criminals with your police car. Other apps and games of note include the promising Cody's App Academy which teaches basic programming concepts to children and the shoot'em up game Raijin Lite.

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Clean up Android devices with the (ad) free Droid Optimizer

German developer Ashampoo has been producing PC cleanup tools since 1999, but now it's looking a little further. Droid Optimizer is a one-stop app for cleaning, managing and maintaining just about any Android device (2.3+).

There’s plenty of competition around, but Droid Optimizer scores immediately as it’s free, with no visible ads. The only marketing is a "More apps" button which displays some recommendations, but that’s it: leave the button alone and there’s nothing else.

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Order food and find the right hotel using Bing

Microsoft has been very busy lately. Just in the last month, the software giant has adopted an international standard for cloud privacy, released Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones, introduced an Outlook app for mobile devices, updated mobile Office to support its rivals' cloud storage services, and removed all restrictions from its OneNote app. However, Microsoft isn't done, as it just introduced two useful new features in Bing.

Bing is making it easier for users to order food and find the right hotel right from the search results. For restaurants that make deliveries, the search engine will show an Order online button; click it and you'll be taken to an ordering service to receive your favorite dishes at the door.

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NSA and GCHQ hacked world's biggest SIM card manufacturer to steal your data

In mid-2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the government-backed agency NSA monitored everything happening on the Internet, including spying on individuals' phone calls, messaging, and emails to glean information and pinpoint suspicious activities in an attempt to stop the growing terrorist acts.

Since the revelations -- which changed everyone's perspective on privacy -- the leaked information from Snowden and acceptance from major technology companies have given us an understanding of how the NSA managed to get our data from the services we heavily rely on. Essentially, either providers agreed to turn over our data or the NSA found another way, a backdoor, to obtain it. But how it manage to tap our phone calls was mostly unclear. Last year, Vodafone did acknowledge that it allowed the NSA to place surveillance tools inside its data centers. But as it turns out, the agency had more ways to log our phone activities.

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Uber bringing food delivery to Barcelona

Uber, the taxi-hailing company from Los Angeles, has announced a food delivery service for Barcelona.

The same service is already available in Los Angeles under the name UberFresh, while in Barcelona it’s called UberEats.

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Google to launch YouTube Kids for Android

Google is launching a kid-friendly version of YouTube. It's a project we first heard about a few months ago, and now YouTube Kids is about to become reality. But rather than launching as a child-friendly version of the website we've come to know and love, YouTube Kids will start its life as an Android app.

Parents will be pleased at Google's plans, where it will be possible to find carefully selected content that is suitable for a younger audience. Google will be curating videos, but there will be one question that enters the minds of mums and dads around the world: "what if my kid uses 'sex' as a search term".

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Top 10 Chinese smartphones

China’s smartphone market is the largest in the world, but some of the country’s major players including Xiaomi and Lenovo have found that, with the domestic market reaching saturation point, they need to look internationally for further growth.

To celebrate the Chinese New Year we’ve taken a look at ten of the best handsets to emerge from the Asian country.

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Reporter’s Notebook: Yahoo, IBM, IEEE and me

I haven’t been writing as much lately. This has been for several reasons, some of which may surprise you. It’s true I’ve had to spend a lot of time fending-off attacks from IBM corporate (more on that below) but I’ve mainly been at work on two secret projects. One is a new documentary series for PBS and the other a new technology startup I’m doing with a partner. The PBS series will be announced when PBS decides to announce it but most of the shooting is already done. The startup has taken the traditional VC route and looks, surprisingly, like it will actually be funded. Evidently if your idea is wild enough and your partner is smart enough it’s still possible for an idiot (that would be me) to make it in Silicon Valley. This project, too, will be announced when the money is dry, hopefully in a week or two.

In the meantime I’ve been working on several columns. One of these, about Yahoo, has been especially frustrating. There was a time when companies actually wanted reporters to write about them, but I guess those days are past. I e-mailed Yahoo corporate communications (twice) and have yet to hear back from [email protected]. I called (again twice) the number they give on Yahoo press releases, leaving messages both times but have yet to get a call back from 408-349-4040. For awhile the Yahoo press site was completely down.

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Duplicate & Same Files Searcher: not just another duplicate file finder

Unnecessary duplicate files can waste hard drive space and cause all kinds of odd PC issues, which is probably why there are so many programs designed to help you track them down.

Duplicate & Same Files Searcher sounds like it's just going to be yet another "me too" duplicate finder, but no -- there are some interesting differences, and they're obvious from the very beginning.

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