Opera 19 adds Bookmarks bar, Hardcore mode
Opera Software has released Opera 19.0 FINAL, the fifth major update of its web browser since it was rebooted last July as a Chromium-based browser and entered a rapid release development cycle.
Version 19 introduces four notable new features, including the long-awaited return of the Bookmarks bar as well as support for custom wallpapers, improvements to its extensions handling and a new Hardcore mode for advanced users.
BlackBerry 10.2.1 update rolling out now
BlackBerry's new smartphone lineup may not be as popular as the Canadian maker would have wanted it to be, with sales of the latest models unable to top those of legacy devices. Despite the poor performance, BlackBerry is not giving up (not yet anyway) as it is frequently launching updates for the BB 10 operating system, with a new version announced today.
BlackBerry 10 OS version 10.2.1 starts to roll out across the globe, with users from US, Europe, Canada, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific region and Latin America set to receive the latest update, starting today, on their devices. There is no word on which BlackBerry 10 OS smartphone will get the new software version first, nor whether the first stage includes mobile operator-branded models. Now let us take a look at the (major) changes.
Is a 'quantified self' the best way forward?
Through smartphone apps and wearable technology we can monitor virtually every aspect of our lives, gathering information about our habits and tracking behavior to discover patterns and trends.
This so-called "quantified self" movement is seen as a clever and efficient way to enhance our lives -- getting one’s body, mind and behavior in their best possible shape.
Elasticsearch goes commercial with Marvel real-time monitoring
The popular open source analytics platform Elasticsearch aims to help businesses unlock the power of big data.
The company is launching two new products, Elasticsearch ELK which brings together three open source products to create an end-to-end analytics solution, and its first commercial product Marvel, a real-time management and monitoring solution.
Dutch court rules it’s not legal for ISPs to block The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay seems to be a never-ending controversy, as we have discussed here many times. The site has been hounded by the law all around the world, although it always seems to manage to survive. Now the service has achieved a major victory, at least in the Netherlands.
A three-judge panel in The Hague has ruled that the blocking of The Pirate Bay by ISPs is not legal. The case had been filed by two providers -- Ziggo and XS4ALL.
Chrome for iOS adds translations, reduces bandwidth usage
Google has rolled out Chrome for iOS 32, a major new release of its alternative browser for iPhone and iPad users. Version 32 introduces a new translation bar for pages written in foreign languages, plus promises to reduce bandwidth usage by up to 50 percent.
It also sees the first phase of a new feature that will update the New Tab page to speed up future searching, and includes the usual gamut of fixes and improvements.
Smartphone shipments top one billion units (maybe), Samsung and Apple lead the pack
In 2013, for the first time, yearly smartphone shipments topped one billion units, according to IDC. Rival firm Strategy Analytics, though, begs to differ and says the milestone has yet to be reached in the past year, with only 990 million units being shipped. Regardless of the number, this market continues to show strong gains year-over-year, as shipments increased by over 34 percent (according to SA; IDC says 38.4 percent) compared to the previous year (for 2012, IDC says 725.3 million units, while SA estimates 700.1 million units).
Apple and Samsung remain the market leaders, according to both firms. The South Korean maker continues to be the largest smartphone vendor, shipping in excess of 310 million units in 2013 (IDC -- 313.9 million units, SA -- 319.8 million units), which represents a healthy increase over the 2012 results (IDC -- 219.7 million units, SA -- 213 million units). Its share of the market also increased, slightly, to 31.3 percent from 30.3 percent, according to IDC, or to 32.3 percent from 30.4 percent, according to SA.
Comodo Internet Security 7 beta adds web filtering, Viruscope
Comodo has announced the first betas of Comodo Internet Security 7, Comodo Antivirus 7 and Comodo Firewall 7.
Top of the "new features" list is the Viruscope, a monitoring layer which not only detects unwanted actions, but can also undo them. Comodo says this provides "more granular control over otherwise legitimate software", for example preventing programs from unnecessarily adding components to the Startup folder.
The Internet gets a win! Microsoft, Google and others allowed to disclose US Government requests
When the Prism and NSA scandal was unearthed and brought to light by Edward Snowden, the internet died a little. I still remember reading the news and being heartbroken that my own government was spying on me by forcing companies to secretly disclose information.
In June of 2013, Microsoft and Google filed lawsuits to gain the ability to disclose the details of these information requests. Today the internet scores a victory -- the shackles have been loosened, and the gags removed from these companies and others like them.
Wikipedia's celebrity voice archive gets underway with the help of Stephen Fry
Wikipedia. It's one of the cornerstones of the internet. It's a global resource which has quite a reputation and has spawned numerous copycats and offshoots; the latest addition to the wiki canon is the Wikipedia Voice Intro Project (or WikiVIP). As you may have guessed from the name, this is a project concerned with audio -- voice recordings specifically. The Wikipedia entries for celebrities and notable figures are to be spruced up with the addition of audio clips.
The first name to enter the vocal history books is Stephen Fry, a man known for his love of technology as much as his comedy, general knowledge and general loveliness. This month he recorded a ten second clip ("Hello, my name is Stephen Fry, I was born in London, and I’ve been in the entertainment business, well I suppose since 1981") which now appears on his Wikipedia page.
Bing and Fox News join forces for State of the Union polling
When it comes to news, I no longer bother with the television. Nowadays, I just visit the web for my daily fix of news stories. However, while some of the cable news companies such as CNN and MSNBC may do poorly in the ratings, Fox News actually does rather well and is typically number one. In other words, people are watching.
When it comes to search engines, Microsoft's Bing is a distant second to Google, but second nonetheless. With that said, the second rated search engine is teaming up with the top rated cable news company for real-time State of the Union polling.
Spotify partners with Yamaha, brings music to your home theater
Yamaha is one of the leading names in the home theater industry, bringing devices to your living room such as its line of A/V receivers. As you know, many of these devices are now "connected", meaning they come with Ethernet and even WiFi.
Now Spotify announces a partnership with Yamaha that will bring its streaming music to your living room. The hardware maker is bringing access to select versions of its receivers.
MediaCrush: an ad-free open source photo, music and video host
There are plenty of web services around to host your photos, music and video files, but most have a range of problems. In particular, they’ll surround your content with intrusive ads, slowing page load time and -- depending on their use of tracking -- perhaps compromising your privacy.
MediaCrush works a little differently. There are no ads. There’s no use of tracking, no records kept of how you use the service. You can even check this yourself, as MediaCrush is entirely open source.
Logitech ConferenceCam CC3000e -- inexpensive enterprise video conferencing
In my travels, I have discovered an unfortunate trend -- many businesses don't utilize video conferencing for remote communication. In other words, many are still relying on a voice-only approach. While this is functional, it is not optimal. After all, body language speaks volumes and you cannot see boredom or excitement through a phone.
According to Logitech, an alarming 95 percent of conference rooms lack video-conferencing. It is the year 2014, surely video conferences should be the norm by now, right? Logitech is looking to remedy this trend with the ConferenceCam CC3000e. Is the device up to the task?
Take control of your Mac backups with TimeMachineEditor 3
Any computer user with even a smidgen of sense has some kind of backup plan in place, and for many Mac owners that backup plan will be Time Machine, Apple’s built-in tool for saving your data from harm. It’s incredibly easy to set up -- choose a backup drive, flick a switch and you’re good to go -- so what’s not to like?
That backup schedule for one. By default, Time Machine updates your backup every hour. That’s fine when you’ve just started out using it, but when low disk space warnings start popping up with regularity, what then? The solution lies with TimeMachineEditor 3.
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