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.
Stop poking us! Cops say Facebook arguments hinder crime solving
Petty Facebook rows are preventing police from "reducing and detecting crime", according to a policing team in Wiltshire, UK.
A sergeant for the neighborhood policing teams of Wootton Bassett, Malmesbury and Cricklade has urged people not to call for help with Facebook incidents and rows unless it relates to domestic disputes/crimes or other serious issues.
HERE beta officially available for Samsung Galaxy smartphones
Today, Nokia officially brings HERE to Samsung Galaxy smartphones, expanding the reach of its powerful mapping software outside of Windows Phones and handsets that bear the Nokia branding. For the time being, the app is exclusively available in the South Korean maker's app store for Galaxy devices, but, later, it will make its way to other Android smartphones as well.
The HERE app may currently be labeled as a beta, but it does not skimp on features. It arrives with pretty much all the major features that Windows Phone users are enjoying from the HERE suite, which says a lot about Nokia's plans post-Lumia. Let's take a look.
The Star Wars approach to business agility
Business agility is the "ability of a business system to rapidly respond to change by adapting its initial stable configuration". So far, so Wikipedia -- and I'm pretty bored already. But what if we can look at the concept from a slightly more interesting angle, and work out some business agility tips you can use? Star Wars, anyone?
There are few examples of non-agile organization greater than the Galactic Empire. It's huge, sprawling and paralyzed by bureaucracy. It loves enormous, costly prestige projects and is controlled top-down by what can only be described as the Universe's worst micro-manager. And in the end, it's defeated by a bunch of what are basically teenagers. Remind you of anyone? Let's take a look at what we can learn about business strategy through the medium of Star Wars. I can at least promise that it's not nothing.
How to enable the notifications center in Windows 10 Technical Preview
When Microsoft took the lid off Windows 10 in late-September, the software giant showcased some of the new features that its new tiled operating system offers in the Technical Preview build. Chief among them was the revival of the Start menu, but virtual desktops, a beefed-up Command Prompt, and Task View were also demoed during the presentation. However, even though it has been an oft-requested addition, there was no mention of a notifications center being baked-into Windows 10.
That was a major disappointment in my book, as a notifications center is a must-have feature for any modern operating system, let alone one that is supposed to run on desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones (perhaps, even wearables). But, rest assured, Windows 10 does come with a notifications center. Microsoft may not yet want us to see it, but it can be enabled. And here is how.
Big data helps with detection of cyber attacks
The main problem that organizations face when combating cyber attacks is that they don't know what to look for and find it difficult to interpret all the data they get from their networks.
Big data analytics company Exabeam has a new product that can cut through the forest of data to make it easier to detect attacks and insider threats in real time using existing security information and event management (SIEM) details.
Lack of modern technology on the menu means UK restaurants are letting diners down
While new technologies have transformed a number of sectors, including healthcare, sport and finance, it seems that at least one industry is lagging behind. A new report commissioned by Berland and released by Velocity has revealed that UK restaurants are missing out on a collective £5.6 billion per year in revenue, due to their relative ignorance of modern tech.
According to the results, UK diners typically have to wait 11 minutes to pay in restaurants. This adds up to a staggering month of thumb-twiddling over the course of a lifetime, says Velocity. 76 percent of diners also said that inefficient service is a huge downside of eating out, and can have a more negative effect on the overall experience than receiving the wrong food order (48 percent).
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