Latest Technology News

If you're starting a web research project then Chrome is an ideal companion: fast, easy to use, and with a capable bookmarking system to record your favorite sites.

There's still plenty of room for improvement, though, and Better Search extends the browser with a host of new search-related features and functionality.

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One-hundred and twelve in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8 in the past seven days. The number of new apps and games in Windows Store slowed down due to Christmas and New Year festivities throughout the world.

If you are interested in games, you may have noticed an increase in fake game releases this week. These look like popular games but are sold for a fraction of the price of the real ones. It is clear that Microsoft needs to step up its verification process in this regard as this is not the first time it has happened.

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It's at this time of year that many people start a diet -- and it's something that Apple might want to think about as well. Two US men are suing Apple because they believe iOS 8 is too big. Or, as the lawsuit puts it, uses an "unexpectedly large percentage of the storage capacity on 8 GB and 16 GB iPhones, iPads and iPods".

Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara complain that Apple failed to warn users that upgrading to the latest version of iOS could mean filling up to 23.1 percent of the available storage space. The lawsuit goes on to suggest that Apple is using the fact that users are likely to run out of space to push its iCloud storage service.

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You might have missed it over the holidays, but just before Christmas the excellent screenshot tool Greenshot was updated to version 1.2 with some major improvements and additions.

The program now supports selecting a capture region with the keyboard: just use the cursor keys to move the cursor (hold down Ctrl to accelerate), and press Enter to define the start and end points.

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Ever since the global economic crisis led customers to question the previously unrivaled traditional banking system, we have seen a wave of innovative players rising up and re-shaping old-fashioned banking models. Over the past few years a host of new companies have shot up, offering alternative methods to everything from loans to foreign exchange services to investments.

While this FinTech revolution has been gradually gaining momentum, 2014 will forever stand out as a landmark year for the industry.

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Yesterday, web analytics firm NetMarketShare released its monthly breakdown of desktop operating system usage share, and it contained a huge shock. According to the figures, Windows 8.x had dropped to its lowest usage share since March 2014, putting it back below XP.

It was a surprise because Windows 8 and 8.1 had both shown solid growth in the previous two months, but suddenly, according to NetMarketShare, 8.x had dropped a whopping 7.07 percentage points in a single month, most of that going to Windows NT. As I observed when reporting, something not quite right there. Late yesterday, the figures were pulled, and new ones have appeared today that show the tiled OS still doing badly, just not quite as badly.

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A new way of powering your smartphone has been released that can provide a week’s worth of charge using renewable energy sources.

Upp is a portable power solution utilizing hydrogen fuel cells that should charge any USB-compatible device.

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Three weeks ago I asked "What tech changed your life in 2014?" You answered here and on Google+. As the new year starts, I wonder what will make all our lives better. Apple Watch? I doubt it. Shake me awake from the nightmare if the wearable isn't the most successful flop of 2015. Windows 10? Skipping nine is a good sign, but is giving users more of what they don't want to let go life changing? Eh, no.

At the precipice of looking ahead, this is a last look behind. Once Consumer Electronics Show leaks and early announcements rush the InterWebs, all eyes will turn forward -- blind to what many people have, focusing on what they want instead. That's because "aspiration" is the defining word of the technology era, and the promise if you buy newfangled This or That your life will be better for it. Sometimes the promise is true, but too often not, which is why I asked the important question three weeks ago.

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Microsoft has just released the Technical Preview of Windows 10. It’s a very early build, so you wouldn’t be advised to run it as your main operating system, and while you could set it to dual boot, running it in a virtualized environment is probably a better idea.

The process is very simple -- all you need is a copy of Oracle VM VirtualBox and the Windows 10 Technical Preview ISO.

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When it comes to cord-cutting, there are few options available to the sports fan. While some sports provide options for online subscriptions, the NFL is not among them, forcing fans to use "alternative" methods for watching their team play on Sunday. As the regular season ends, so does one of the best sources for accomplishing this.

Wiziwig.tv is closing its doors, after providing live streaming sports of all varieties to its users. The website cites a change in law in Spain that would possibly trip it up, resulting in ridiculously heavy fines if found guilty, which seems likely.

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The Windows Store might still be a bit of a mess, and there aren’t anywhere near as many decent apps as those found in the Apple App Store and Google Play, but things are definitely improving.

Changes to the store in 2014 resulted in 30 percent more active users, and over 110 percent year-over-year increase in app downloads and gross sales. Microsoft says it has seen an 80 percent increase in registered developers and a 60 percent increase in app selection too, which is good news for the platform. The software giant has also revealed big plans are afoot for 2015.

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Looking back on this last day of the year, I wonder how my daily tech changed so much since the first. On Jan. 1, 2014, my core computing comprised Chromebook, Nexus tablet, and Nexus smartphone. Midyear, I switched out to all Microsoft—buying Surface Pro 3 and Nokia Lumia Icon. While commendable the effort, Windows poorly fit my lifestyle. Today, I'm all Apple—13-inch MacBook Pro Retina Display with 512GB SSD, iPhone 6 128GB, and iPad Air 128GB. I can't imagine using anything else.

Following the lead of my BetaNews colleagues Mihaita Bamburic, Ian Barker, Alan Buckingham, Brian Fagioli, and Wayne Williams, I review my year in tech, and unlike 2013 focus on products that released during the year. I present my 2014 personal tech alphabetically, from company name, rather than order of importance—because they all matter. Note: While the list looks like four, it's five because the first is two combined.

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Leanify is a file minifier, a lightweight tool which can cut file sizes without affecting the core content (image files are smaller but their quality remains the same, for example).

We’ve discussed similar tools before, in particular FileOptimizer, but Leanify is, well -- a little different.

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We published our best Windows store apps of 2014 yesterday which listed great applications released for Microsoft's tiled operating system.

Today, we have a list of top games for Windows 8 that include popular releases such as Sonic Dash, Star Wars Assault Team and Taptiles.

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A new report has revealed that Apple devices were a hugely popular Christmas gift this year, trumping smartphone rivals.

Flurry’s annual Christmas report found that 51.3 percent of new devices activated on Christmas Day were manufactured by Apple, compared with 17.7 percent by Samsung and 5.8 percent by Nokia.

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