Latest Technology News

A new piece of research has looked into attitudes and beliefs about privacy when it comes to mobile phones, following Vodafone's dramatic revelations about state surveillance and tapping mobile conversations earlier this month.

Predictably enough, the study, conducted by OnePoll and sponsored by Silent Circle (the private comms firm and outfit involved with the Blackphone) found that most people were cynical on the matter. Only 12 percent of the 1,000 UK respondents believed their mobile calls and texts remained private -- in other words, almost nine in ten think they're being listened in on. Indeed, 35 percent admitted they were "careful what they say" during a mobile call, assuming their conversation will be heard by flapping intelligence agency ears somewhere.

There’s no real secret to extending the battery life of your Android device: just keep your screen brightness and timeout to a minimum, while turning off, disabling or uninstalling everything you don’t really need.

Applying these tweaks at the right time is often a hassle, of course, and it could be simpler to allow the free Comodo Battery Saver to manage everything for you.

Whole home audio does not come cheap, and the big player to date has been the Sonos system. Now Samsung is jumping into the market and has found a major music player to partner with in its implementation of the system.

The electronics maker and music streaming service Spotify are announcing the new Samsung Wireless Audio Speaker range (M7 and M5). "With Spotify Connect built in, you can stream your favorite music and playlists directly from Spotify. Hit play on your mobile or tablet, and the music booms out in any room of your home. You can even play through multiple speakers at the same time", the streaming service states.

German multimedia developer Ashampoo has announced the release of Ashampoo Music Studio 5, its all-in-one music management suite.

Improvements include an extended Analyze tool which checks your chosen audio files for common problems (missing tags, incorrect file extensions) and corrects them in a few clicks.

AgileBits has unveiled 1Password for Android 4.0, a complete rebuild of its app for giving Android device users access to passwords stored securely using the 1Password service.

Previously, the app only gave users read-only access to passwords created on other platforms, including Windows, Mac and iOS, but is now a fully fledged password manager in its own right.

Tedious PC tasks can sometimes by automated by scripting, command line switches, maybe an application’s own built-in scheduler. But if those options don’t work for you then you could try MouseController, a very lightweight tool which records and replays your mouse actions.

The program is absolutely tiny -- a 32KB download -- and doesn’t require installation. Just unzip it, launch the single executable and you’re ready to go.

Amazon can make a great Android device, as demonstrated by the Kindle Fire HDX tablets and Fire TV media box. However, there has been a legitimate knock on the offerings -- lack of apps, including Google's. The trade-off for the beautiful hardware is the frustration of missing some of your favorite apps.

Amazon has been making major improvements to app availability in its Appstore though and today, the company announces actual numbers and analysis behind it. The number of apps available have tripled. Yes, Amazon's Appstore is growing and becoming a legitimate threat to Google's, but will it ever actually surpass it?

One of the major concerns of mobile use in the enterprise is keeping company data secure. BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) already offers a reliable messaging service with millions of users worldwide, but now with the launch of a new service it lets employees benefit from speedy, reliable and private business communication.

The new BBM Protected service offers enhanced security for messages sent between BlackBerry devices by adding an extra layer of encryption to the standard BBM which encrypts messages in transit.

Has Apple painted itself into a corner with iOS 8 multitasking? I ask because, like many technology enthusiasts, I came away from WWDC feeling a bit let down. After all, everyone and their grandmother was expecting Apple to announce some sort of split-screen multitasking capability for iOS 8. Yet when Mr. Cook and friends took the stage there was no mention of the feature.

So, what happened? According to my sources, it all comes down to a programming mechanism known as "Auto Layout". Introduced with iOS 6, Auto Layout allows developers to create apps that support dynamic resizing, using pre-defined rules for object spacing to adapt an app’s UI to fit a particular screen resolution or orientation.

Manufacturer support is key for Windows Phone in the ongoing battle against its more popular rivals, Android and iOS, as it needs a more diversified handset portfolio to successfully cater to the needs of a wider range of consumers, most of whom are not part of its growing user base. The platform is heading in the right direction though, as, since earlier this year, Microsoft announced a significant number of new partnerships, some of which have already borne fruit at Computex.

Indian smartphone maker Micromax, which is the second-largest vendor in its home market, is the latest new partner to add to the Windows Phone collection. The company just announced the Canvas Win W121 and Canvas Win W092, which are similar in specifications to the Nokia Lumia 630 and Lumia 525, respectively.

One of the best ways for businesses to cope with the demands of mobile usage and BYOD is to use a mobile device management solution to allow the IT department to stay in control.

Security specialist Comodo has announced a range of new features to enhance its existing MDM product and make it more attractive to administrators needing to secure and manage large-scale deployments of mobile devices.

A former hacker once convicted for hacking into NASA and the Pentagon claims to have found a way to reliably double your money by exploiting a loophole in PayPal's system.

Razvan Cernaianu, who goes by the nickname TinKode, claims scammers need to open three PayPal accounts in order to pull off the scam. One is a legitimate buyer, another is a disposable seller and the third is a mule. The latter accounts need to be linked to virtual credit cards.

My book, The Decline and Fall of IBM, is now available in paperback, on the iPad and Nook, as well as on the Kindle. A dozen other platforms plus an audio book will be available shortly, but these are the big ones.

Over the weekend I received a very insightful message about the book from reader Steve Jenkins in Australia, where IBM is showing the same behavior problems as everywhere else. Steve has an insight into Big Blue that I wish I had thought to include in the book because I believe he is absolutely correct.

Sometimes things are serendipitous in the tech world. This past Friday, I received a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S5 to review for BetaNews. Yesterday, as part of my testing, I wanted to see how easily I could achieve root access. To my surprise, after many weeks on the market, root was still not achieved by anyone. I even learned that the xda community had raised $18,000 in pledges for whoever could achieve root for both the Verizon and AT&T variants.

Well, coincidentally or serendipitously, root access is announced today, merely one day after I began my search. Fabled internet hacker geohot, most famous for jailbreaking the iPhone, is the man to claim the $18,000 bounty. He has released a simple APK that does the work -- no ADB or computer needed. However, his discovery goes far beyond the S5 and could work with almost any Android device released before June 3, 2014.

Why Can’t I Connect? is an open source tool which can help to identify and solve TCP/IP connection errors.

Typically you'll use the program to try and connect to one of many common server types (Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL Server, FTP, SFTP, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, IRC, LDAP and Usenet are supported, along with generic servers and clients). Why Can’t I Connect? then tries to make the connection for you, reporting on what happens at every stage, and offering possible explanations for whatever errors crop up.