A new report from research specialist Gartner says that the physical location of data is becoming increasingly irrelevant and that by 2020 a combination of legal, political and logical location will be more important.

Gartner research vice president Carsten Casper says that the number of data residency and data sovereignty discussions has soared in the past 12 months, and that this has stalled technology innovation in many organizations. Originally triggered by the dominance of US providers on the Internet and the Patriot Act, the perceived conflict has since been fueled by revelations of surveillance by the NSA made public by Edward Snowden.

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Sony launched the first Walkman in 1979, and this is this week the tech breakthrough is celebrating its 35th birthday.

Nowadays there are iPhones, devices that one can use as a phone, a computer and a music player. Before that, there were just iPods that enabled people to put their favorite music all onto one device and create playlists to fit their mood or preference. However, what many younger kids today won't know is that what started this whole process and changed the way we listened to music entirely was the introduction of the Walkman.

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You’re bored with your home’s look. It’s time for a change. Repainting could make all the difference, but which color scheme will work best? Dulux Visualizer is a smart iOS/ Android app which can show you. Just point your camera at the wall and it’s repainted, in real time, to match whatever color you like.

This all starts by selecting your preferred color. One option is to browse a color picker covering the entire Dulux range. Alternatively, you’re able to take a picture of any scene and extract a color you like.

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Icecream Apps is a new company which recently launched three freeware Windows tools: Media Converter, PDF Split and Merge and Image Resizer. Polished and professional, available in several languages and with Mac versions available “pretty soon”, the software suggests Icecream wants to be taken seriously. We downloaded the new range for a closer look.

Icecream Media Converter is a free tool for converting video and audio files between all the main formats (and most of the minor ones). The program can import multiple local files, or download its source videos from web URLs, before converting them to your preferred device, audio or video format.

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PlayOn is one of the best cord-cutter services that flies largely under the radar. The online TV and DVR service is completely legal, thanks to the way it operates and, in the past, has partnered with Roku to distribute devices. Now PlayOn and its PlayLater service are going to distribute even more devices to customers.

The company is announcing that new "lifetime subscription" customers will receive a free Chromecast with the purchase. "With Chromecast and PlayOn, smartphones and tablets become powerful remote controls for TV viewing. Users can browse through hundreds of channels and thousands of movies and shows in an easy-to-navigate interface on their mobile device. PlayOn's PlayLater software gives Chromecast users DVR capability to record almost any online video for casting later when they are no longer available online. The included PlayOn browser extension gives users the ability to cast almost any full screen video from any browser on their PC to their TV with ease and without any web browser frames", the company says.

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Image conversion tools are supposed to save you time, at least in theory, but after you’ve chosen your source files, specified exactly what you’re likely to do with them, and set up your destination options, it doesn't always feel that way.

Send-To Convert makes your life easier by allowing you to set up a conversion task, and run it directly from Explorer. At its simplest you might select a few images, right-click, select Send To > Send-To Convert, and that’s it: your images are converted right away.

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In recent years there has been a lot of love shown for Plex, the slick and frankly brilliant media sharing solution that encompasses just about any platform. But it’s not the only media server in town.

It’s lurked in the shadows for some time, but now there’s a serious competitor starting to eye up Plex’s crown, and that solution is Media Browser.

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Boneheaded. That’s the first word that comes to mind when I think about Microsoft abandoning its Surface branding in favor of Nokia Lumia.

You see, successful branding is a tricky business. Getting people to internalize your brand or product name as part of their everyday vocabulary is a herculean task. Coke did it. So did Xerox and Kleenex. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gone to "Xerox" something, or asked the person next to me to pass me the box of "Kleenex".

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Right now, it is summer in New York. The temperature keeps creeping up and the humidity is causing crankiness. There is no better place to witness the crankiness than the parking lot of a big store like Best Buy or Walmart. People will camp out for a close parking spot with their car's blinker on and fight with each other. Why? They do not want to walk far in the heat. Me? I gladly park far away from the store, because I am thankful that I can walk. No, I am not being judgmental -- only observing perfectly healthy people taking their blessings for granted.

For someone who cannot walk or move their arms, life must be a frustrating, maddening struggle. Luckily, in 2014, we have technologies that can assist people in overcoming their disabilities. Prosthetic technologies are getting better every day and medicines keep improving. A Seattle man named Tyler Schrenk is leveraging technology to live a full life despite being paralyzed, but you may be surprised by what he is using -- a Surface Pro and Xbox 360.

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As a young Londoner, I'm not much of a driver, but boy do I see some congestion. Our capital's streets are bursting at the seams with cars, buses, bikes and trucks, and the majority are completely unconnected to each other.

So it was with interest that I attended NXP's Innovation Day in Eindhoven, Holland, to witness a range of technologies developed by the semiconductor company, including the latest automotive innovations. Falling under the ever-expanding category that is the Internet of Things, the connected car is seen by many to be the future of sustainable transport.

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Given the amount of hype surrounding it you could be forgiven for thinking that big data is the answer to most business and scientific problems.

But a new survey by database specialists Paradigm4 reveals that almost three-quarters of data scientists believe that big data has made their research harder. The reason for this is not, as you might expect, the volume of data but the variety.

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Like Windows Phone, Windows 8.x does not get anywhere near the same level of attention as its more popular rivals, Android and iOS, receive from top developers. Still, the app selection has slowly gotten better, thanks in no small part to third-party offerings, reaching the point where it ticks all the right boxes for casual users.

But, Windows Store is also seeing improvements in its selection geared towards professionals. The latest major Modern UI offering to greet Windows 8.x is Autodesk's AutoCAD 360, which arrives as a free preview. This is a huge win for the platform.

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One of the biggest concerns that businesses have about the increasing use of mobiles and BYOD is how to keep their data secure. Traditional security tools were built to cope with desktop devices rather than the on/off existence of mobile connections.

Mobile platform specialist Kinvey aims to help mobile developers to seamlessly secure mobile, tablet, and responsive Web apps with its newly-launched Mobile Identity Connect product.

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When it comes to portable gaming, the iPad and whole ensuing tablet explosion saw the start of a shift away from traditional gaming handhelds, and a new piece of research has underlined this with the news that tablets have now outdone the Nintendo 3DS.

The study from Futuresource Consulting posed over a hundred questions to children aged three to twelve across the UK (and also the US, Germany and China). It found that in the UK, tablets are now the most popular personal device owned by kids -- with 44 percent having a slate, meaning that they've overtaken the 3DS as top gaming dog.

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Communication tools have evolved so much in the past couple of years alone, with developers adding even more features and improving existing ones to allow us to better communicate and understand each other. Improved voice and video calls? Group chats? Instant translations? New, cooler emoticons? You bet!

On the other hand, we have chat app Yo, which, instead of trying to offer more than the rest of the growing pack, is trying to differentiate itself by giving users as little features as possible -- they can only say "Yo". It launched nearly two weeks ago for Android and iOS, and now it arrives on Windows Phone too.

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