Latest Technology News

Versatile video converter/ downloader/ editor TEncoder has expanded its range even further with the addition of a DVD ripper.

Point the program at your disc video folder (\VIDEO_TS, probably), and you’re able to choose the title, start and end chapters, audio and subtitle track you’d like to rip.

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Intel’s wireless charging bowl is on track to be released by the end of the year with the company still tight-lipped on how much the revolutionary device will end up costing.

CEO Brian Krzanich confirmed as much during a speech at MakerCon in New York when he said that the device will be "on the market right around the end of this year," according to CNET.

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Phablets might be increasing in popularity globally, but iPhone users aren’t blown away by the idea of carrying around a giant phone, if early adoption data is to be believed.

Although it’s very, very early days for Apple’s new handsets, the iPhone 6 is already proving to be a much more popular draw than the giant iPhone 6 Plus, although as my colleague Joe Wilcox points out in his 10 things you should know before buying iPhone 6 or 6 Plus article, limited stock means the 6 Plus is already sold out in a lot of locations, which will obviously have an impact on the number of people who own one.

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You should always shoot RAW, if given the option. As opposed to JPG, it's a lossless format. What the sensor sees is exactly what you get in your files. You also get lots more breathing room when editing photos without an apparent drop in quality. Shot in black and white and want to go back to color? No problem, RAW gives you that option. Want to recover shadow details without messing up the look of the image? Again, it's possible, as long as you shoot RAW. Want to recover details from blown highlights? Well, I am sure you get the gist by now.

If you are the lucky user of a Nokia Lumia 1020, Lumia 1520, Lumia Icon or Lumia 930 you can also take advantage of RAW capture. But, after you'll enable the feature, you will soon run into a problem -- what app to use to edit those unusually large files (with a DNG extension), right on your Windows Phone? Well, you can use Rawer.

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As we all carry out more of our day-to-day transactions online and access the internet through a wider range of devices, we're opening ourselves up to greater potential risk.

Add in the constant battle of security providers to stay ahead of hackers and malware writers and it's easy to doubt if you can ever stay truly safe online. Joe Siegrist CEO of password management specialist LastPass thinks that although it's not 100 percent possible to hack-proof yourself, you can significantly reduce your risk, we spoke to him to find out how.

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Most big-name audio players come with a few visualizations to liven up playback. Right-click inside Windows Media Player, click Visualizations, and you can have it display swirling clouds, spectrum-type bars, psychedelic ripples and space flight effects, amongst others.

These aren’t always great quality, though. There may not be much choice, and smaller audio players often don’t have a visualizer at all. But if you like the core idea, you can always improve the situation by installing the free Plane9.

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Not so very long ago virtual reality was the stuff of science fiction but it's increasingly emerging into the real world.

A new infographic produced by collaboration specialist PGi explores the current state of virtual reality and the possibility that it will soon be appearing in the world of work.

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The new iPhone 6 models have gone on sale, and shortly after Apple's new smartphones hit shelves, teardown sites had the full skinny on the innards of the devices, having ripped them apart.

The most prominent, iFixit, produced its usual very detailed breakdown of the components of both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Here are some of the highlights...

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If you've backed something on Kickstarter then you know that you're risking the money you spent, as some come to fruition while others never do. The site has had its share of major successes such as the Pebble watch and the tiny Android-based Ouya gaming console. But there have also been ones that simply get the money and never ship.

Now the service is trying to clean things up with a new terms of service agreement that it hopes will lend more confidence to potential backers. That should be a good thing for customers, and Kickstarter spells things out pretty clearly.

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There is plenty of competition in the cloud storage space, but, unfortunately, for the most part any massive changes are limited to paid plans. They get bigger, they get cheaper, but the free tier, which most users get first, remains largely as limiting as it has always been. Sure, we get a couple of extra gigs for free here and there, but it's all smoke after all, meant to lead us right to the money grabbers. (And who could blame providers for trying to make money?)

Now, Microsoft is doing something rather interesting, as it gives OneDrive users nearly twice as much storage in the free plan, bumping the limit from a so-so 15 GB to a respectable 30 GB. The reason? Well, it's a damn clever one -- the extra freebie is meant to help Apple users who are having trouble with iOS 8 upgrades due to low available storage. Because this is an oft-discussed issue, it is bound to generate some free advertising for Microsoft and OneDrive.

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Launch day is over, and now the weekend warriors descend on Apple and cellular carrier stores looking to buy iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. Expect mayhem everywhere. Not since 2010 has there been such long lines for or insanity about a new "i" device. I expected nutsville, even with preorder option, but nothing like this.

To be honest, the frenzy defies logic and there must be some kind of mob mentality driving it. I am reminded of Windows 95's nearly 20 years ago. Some people will point to past iPhone launches as being as big or bigger. No. iPhone 4 was the last gigantic debut weekend, before Apple started taking preorders, a mechanism that shifted sales away from the big day. iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are much larger when factoring in those 4 million first 24-hour preorders (and others) ahead of September 19 store openings.

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Microsoft was set to officially start selling its next generation games console in China on September 23, but it appears the tech giant’s plans have gone somewhat awry.

Late on Friday the company issued a statement admitting that the launch was being postponed. "Despite strong and steady progress, we are going to need more a bit more time to deliver the best experiences possible for our fans in China," Microsoft said, somewhat cryptically.

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All-in-one free screengrab tool Grabilla has been updated to version 1.23 with the ability to capture scrolling windows.

This is ideal if you need to capture a long web page or other document. There’s no need to take and edit multiple grabs, as the program should handle everything for you.

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No one ever wants to focus on worst-case scenarios. However, the unfortunate fact of the matter is this: terrible things can happen. Tornados, hurricanes, fires, blizzards, and floods -- they can damage and destroy both personal and intellectual property within seconds. That’s why preparation for the aftermath of such disasters is crucial -- and with September being named National Disaster Preparedness Month, what better time to formulate a plan of attack than now?

According to the National Federation of Independent Business, about 30 percent of small businesses will experience some sort of natural disaster. Even worse than the consequences that often follow in the wake of such catastrophes is the fact that complete restoration of important data, files, and applications is not always guaranteed. All too often, businesses that fail to properly prepare for disaster lose critical information and assets. The end result? A business that is past the point of recovery and instead must rebuilt itself from the ground up.

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With the arrival of the iPhone 6 (and 6 Plus), this may be a good time to review smartphone market share and usage share trends around the world. As these data points reflect the tail end of the iPhone's product cycle, we should expect a market share bounce over the coming months. On the other hand, movements in usage share are unlikely to be as sharp.

As always, market share data is sourced from Kantar and usage share data is from Statcounter. My rationale for using these particular metrics was laid out in my last post on the topic:

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