Apple remains the most valuable brand in the world
Continuing its run at the top of the charts, Apple is revealed as the most valuable brand in the world. With a massive 21 percent increase over the last 12 months, Apple is now valued at just under $119 billion -- almost double that of Microsoft which finds itself in fifth place with a value of just over $61 billion.
The top 100 rankings have been published by Interbrand, and a number of familiar names from the world of tech are to be found in the top 20. Google's value jumped by 15 percent from last year to $107 billion, and the search giant remains in second position.
Rise of Macs: Apple is the fifth-largest PC maker
The PC market is not what it once used to be. Both shipments and sales are in the proverbial toilet. Old devices are still adequate years down the road, and more than capable of running newer versions of Windows, if users wish to upgrade -- many don't. Other types of devices, like tablets, can do the basic tasks just as well, if not better than the PC, and, for many in emerging markets, smartphones are what they buy these days to connect them to the Internet.
There are other changes afoot as well. Thanks to the increasing popularity of its Macs, Apple, once known as a niche vendor with a limited appeal, now ranks as the fifth-largest PC maker worldwide, according to a new report from research firm IDC. How did it get here? Well, blame the lower prices, among other things.
Inserting images into Gmail could be so much better
When Google first launched the new compact compose window in Gmail, many of you might have noticed something annoying about inserting images.
One of the greatest Gmail features has been drag and drop. But if you drag an image into the compose window it is inserted inline. This is less than optimal for two reasons. One, if you want to write an email and insert many images, you probably don't want them inline as it ruins the reading experience. Two, inline images are very static and you can't manipulate them: you can't zoom in or see the pictures in a full window view, and you also can't easily save them to either Google Drive or your computer as you can with attachments.
Apple is the top target for phishing attacks
Apple is now the most-phished brand according to the latest report from the Anti-Phishing Work Group (APWG).
Based on data from the first half of 2014, 17.7 percent of all phishing attacks were aimed at the Cupertino-based firm, with PayPal in second and Chinese shopping site Taobao claiming third place.
How to manage the perfect BYOD rollout
BYOD was once a buzzword coined to describe the increase of end-user owned devices entering the workplace and accessing corporate networks and applications. However, there are now a lot more smart mobile devices on the network which are running more bandwidth-intensive applications, than ever before. This is only set to increase according to IDC who predict that 79 percent of mobile devices in the enterprise will be "employee liable" by 2017.
Having a BYOD strategy is too invaluable to be cast aside, yet it still presents a number of challenges to IT managers, who need to ensure the security and integrity of their corporate resources and data. But at the same time they need to allow multiple users, including guests and employees, the flexibility they demand for using different devices, whether corporate-issued or part of the BYOD trend.
Robust mobile monitoring is imperative for mobile app owners and developers
As enterprises move more and more of their mission-critical workloads to mobile applications, the need greatly increases for a solution that collects mobile application behavioral analytics and continuously manages the performance of mobile applications in real time.
Beyond the application’s performance, information about real-users’ behavior and interactions with an application can be tremendously valuable. Each user’s click deploys millions of lines of code, and with real-user monitoring capabilities, those clicks and code can be used to trace a plethora of information about that user.
HTC exposes the Desire Eye Android smartphone and RE camera -- sadly, no Nexus 9
HTC knows how to make a great smartphone. The HTC One M7 and M8 are very popular for having solid build quality and best in class speakers. Unfortunately, while the phones are great, the camera has been lackluster. Don't get me wrong, the photo quality is passable but has lacked compared to other flagships, such as Apple's iPhone and the Galaxy S5.
Today, HTC takes the smartphone world by storm with the selfie-focused HTC Desire Eye and a dedicated action camera, called "Re". Believe it or not, the manufacturer is actually releasing a standalone camera that can interact with both Android and iOS devices. Unfortunately, the Nexus 9 that the Android community has been waiting for was a no-show.
UK crime chief wants even more powers to snoop NSA-style
It has been said that we are living in a post-NSA world. What this really amounts to is that we are now slightly more aware of the level of snooping that has been going on in the background for many years. There has been widespread outrage at the revelations made by Edward Snowden, and there have been similar concerns raised outside of the US. In the UK, the FBI-like National Crime Agency, wants greater powers to monitor emails and phone calls -- and it wants the public to agree to this.
Director General of the NCA, Keith Bristow, spoke with the Guardian and said that the biggest threats to public safety are to be found online. He said that more powers to monitor online data is needed, and suggested that public resistance to this was down to the fact that he had thus far failed to properly explain why such powers are needed.
Google Hangouts is great, but will it ever be finished?
A year ago Google released project Babel. The search giant shared with us a grand vision of a unified and improved messaging and video platform. This vision started becoming reality with Google Hangouts. But in classic Google fashion, it was never finished.
Before Hangouts, there was Google Talk. And it was great. It was simple, and to the point. You could use it in third-party applications, it worked in your Gmail, and complaints were hard to come by. However, Google had been working on Google+ and that also had a chat -- one that was not compatible with Talk. So, Google promised unification; and when the users of Talk looked at their perfectly working service, and then back at Google skeptically, Google promised an unrivaled experience across platforms.
BlackBerry's desperate attempts to revitalize the company are doomed to fail
The age of the "crackberry" is past, and although BlackBerry is still alive and developing new products, the company hasn’t had a great decade.
Since the introduction of the iPhone, BlackBerry’s fortunes have plummeted. Recent failed or unimpressive efforts have included rebranding the company after its signature phone, which meant changing the name from the odd-sounding RIM to the recognizable BlackBerry name we have all loved and parodied. The company also released two touchscreen-only phones, ditching its physical keyboards in an effort that was ultimately unsuccessful.
Internet and inequality: The digital divide gets personal
Access to fast, reliable Internet empowers people to learn for themselves. It gives them the means to solve their own problems. It eliminates one of the obstacles that stands in the way of the oppressed knowing how others have freed themselves in the past. Unfortunately, we found that low-income areas with the most to gain from access to the world’s knowledge, continue to lag behind in Internet speeds.
On average, states whose populations are made up of people with lower incomes living in rural areas are likely to have the slowest Internet speeds. In order to gain a greater understanding of the role of wealth in regards to Internet speeds, we compared average Internet speeds for all 50 states with several financial factors.
.com and .net? Fuhgeddaboudit! Register a .nyc domain name instead
Back in the day, people thought they could get rich from .com domain names. As a teen, I remember spending hours trying to register the names of popular companies in hopes of squatting and reselling. Unfortunately, I never found anything good, and never flipped a domain for millions.
What's really sad is when a website has to choose something like .org because the .com they want is taken. It is hard to take a website seriously when it isn't an organization and uses .org. Well, if you own a business in New York City and the .com domain you desire is taken, you may be able to register .nyc instead.
Brave the sands and visit the Arabian desert with Google Street View
There seems to be no place the intrepid Google Street View team will not go. From oceans to canyons, the team has tackled everything. The latest location is the sands of the United Arab Emirates, a rather desolate place for any person.
You won't need to ride a camel to make your trip to the Liwa Desert, as you can see it all from the comfort of your seat. Google has already braved sand storms and unbearable heat to bring you the images.
XYplorer Free provides you with a multi-paned, multi-tabbed alternative to Windows Explorer
If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in Windows it’s the fact that -- even now, almost 20 years after Windows 95 was released -- Windows Explorer still requires you to open separate windows for each folder you wish to access.
Navigating folders using multiple windows can be a nightmare, but if you’re running out of patience, it’s time to make the switch to a Windows Explorer replacement called XYplorer Free.
Updating your backup approach -- from physical servers to virtualized environments
Backup is often at the bottom of the list for IT teams -- an afterthought even -- but having an effective backup and disaster recovery plan in place means considering backup as an important piece of the IT strategy. Over the past two decades, IT departments have hosted dedicated physical servers per application, but as companies move to virtual environments, backup approaches must evolve too.
For most IT departments, the rotation for physical servers is: do a full backup of email and databases Monday -- Thursday; move to disk only the changed unstructured data files (incrementals) on Monday- Thursday; and then on Friday do a full backup of all data in the environment.
Most Commented Stories
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About Us - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy - Sitemap.