Latest Technology News

Cord-cutting is a popular phrase these days. The act of getting rid of the overpriced cable or satellite subscription bill is certainly appealing, but is it practical for most people? Many of us no longer watch shows live -- we've become a DVR generation. But there is a catch to that, as live sports are still the biggest draw on US TV.

Recently Fox Sports streamed the Super Bowl, and it did so without restriction. In other words, you didn't need to prove you were a customer of Dish, Comcast or any other money-pit. You just tuned in, dealt with the ads, and watched the game.

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Microsoft has unveiled the first Service Pack update for Microsoft Office 2013 with the release of Microsoft Office 2013 Service Pack 1 (32-bit) and Microsoft Office 2013 Service Pack 1 (64-bit). As expected, the SP1 is primarily a collection of previously released security patches and bug fixes, but does include some compatibility improvements as well as new apps for Office capabilities and APIs for third-party developers.

The update comes with the promise of improved compatibility with Windows 8.1 as well as Internet Explorer 11. It’s also optimized to work better with newer hardware, such as high-DPI screens and precision touchpads.

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Do you rue the day you signed up with your phone provider? Maybe you've found a better offer elsewhere and want to take your cell phone to another company. Now, if you're in the US, you are able to -- legally -- unlock your mobile and take it to whatever network you like. The bill was approved yesterday, having been brought about by a massive petition that gathered over 100,000 signatures. A 2012 ruling made unlocking illegal by closing a DMCA exemption loophole that had been permitted in 2006 and 2010.

In other parts of the world it is common practice to unlock phones and move them between providers, so it's understandable that US residents felt they were getting a poor deal. Now the bill has been approved, handset owners are able "to legally unlock their cell phones so that they can use it on other cellular networks." But this does not mean there is going to be a free-for-all; unlocking must be carried out "without violating anti-circumvention provisions".

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As you’ll probably guess from its name, Crap Killer is a tool which scans your PC, trying to find browser toolbars and other junk, then offers to help you remove them.

This is all extremely basic, though. There’s no special detection of spyware here; if a program doesn’t appear in the Add/ Remove Programs applet then Crap Killer won’t find it. And there’s nothing to remove unwanted programs, either. All you can do is launch their official uninstaller.

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The amount of storage that is advertised in a product's specifications sheet never matches the user-available capacity when software is preinstalled on the device. That is to be expected, but there comes a point when customers may be getting too little space to store some content and install a few apps. With just a couple of games, that are growing in size nowadays, there might be nothing left available.

That is what upcoming Galaxy S5 buyers will have to deal with, as the preinstalled software on Samsung's new flagship takes up more than half of the advertised storage on the 16 GB model. Yes, that is roughly 8 GB occupied out-of-the-box.

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A study of 2,500 people in the UK shows that 68 percent have been distracted from completing work by browsing the web, checking emails and engaging in social media.

In addition, 63 percent said they had lost their train of thought while working on a report or long piece of written work because they responded to an email or social media alert.

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In keeping up with tradition, there will be two processors available in the Samsung Galaxy S5. The international version gets Qualcomm's quad-core Snapdragon 801, while another model -- that will most likely be available in non-LTE markets -- ships with the company's own octa-core Exynos chip, that Samsung just unveiled at MWC 2014.

Samsung is increasingly reliant on Qualcomm processors for its flagship Android devices, like the Galaxy S4, Galaxy Note 3 and, most recently, Galaxy S5, as the Exynos chips that arrived in 2013 have failed to live up to expectations. Even though those were octa-core designs, the Qualcomm-made, quad-core, solutions performed similarly and came with a very competent LTE modem as well. Samsung is not giving up (yet), as the new Exynos 5422 still aims to turn the tables in the company's favor.

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Microsoft has released a service pack update for the latest version of Office. Service Pack 1 (SP1) promises greater stability, expanded functionality, and security enhancements for Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Exchange Server 2013, as well as improved compatibility with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

The service pack contains all of the public and cumulative updates released since Office 2013 first became available, as well as numerous unreleased fixes and updates that reflect recent changes. SP1 improvements include:

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BYOD is in full swing, but most businesses are not prepared for it. In order to maintain a high level of security, companies that embrace the movement, or want to, have to change, or adapt, their existing policies to accommodate the wave of devices their employees are bringing in, which is not what 55 percent of them are doing, according to a study issued last week.

Samsung is among the few mobile devices manufacturers to take an active role in ensuring its products are BYOD-ready and enabled straight off the bat. Its response to the movement is Knox, a solution the company released one year ago, to augment the Samsung for Enterprise program. And, now, the successor arrives to beef up Knox even further.

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Due to its low market share, Windows Phone is not a popular target for malware writers, which gives users a sense of security. Whether that is genuine or false it remains to be seen, but, for the time being, the platform can be considered devoid of any malware.

Like iOS, Windows Phone limits what users, and apps, can do to increase security, which is also one of the reasons why malware is not running rampant. This is achieved through a number of dedicated features, like sandboxing. However, the operating system cannot keep users from visiting the darker corners of the InterWebs, or keep them safe from potential risks while doing so. Russian security company Kaspersky has decided to take matters into its own hands, and help those who navigate to suspicious or unsafe websites, by launching Safe Browser.

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When it rains, it pours. Sadly for Apple, it seems the company just cannot catch a break. Most recently, a nasty SSL bug was discovered in both iOS and OSX, which potentially enabled man-in-the-middle attacks and lessened security. While iOS was patched pretty quickly, OS X ws not patched until earlier today.

While that alone is enough to damage a company's reputation on security, yet another Apple vulnerability has surfaced today. Security firm FireEye has discovered a keylogging-like bug in iOS 7, which could allow evil-doers to track all touchscreen and button presses.

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While I am a Linux guy at heart, I love OS X. After all, both Apple's operating system and Linux distributions are Unix-like. While Microsoft's Windows is relatively safe nowadays, I still feel safest on OS X or Fedora. Well, at least I did feel safe. While Linux remains rock solid, OS X and iOS have been dealt a huge blow from a trust perspective.

You see, on both of Apple's operating systems, there was a massive bug discovered, which rendered SSL to be virtually worthless. The bug was an honest mistake, any programmer could have made it. However, in a company the size of Apple, with all of its billions of dollars, it should have been caught. The entire fiasco puts a spotlight on Apple's checks and balances. Even if this is a one-off oversight, perception by consumers is everything. While the fruit-logo company was (arguably) quick to patch iOS, Mac users were left in the cold. Today, Apple finally throws its users a blanket, and releases an update to patch the nasty bug.

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The increasing trend towards using mobile devices has opened up users to a whole range of new threats. On mobiles insecure apps present a greater risk than traditional malware and viruses.

Announced at the RSA Conference, viaProtect allows consumers to take control of and protect the personal data on their devices.

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If you regularly troubleshoot other people’s PCs then you’ll know you can’t rely on them having the programs you need. It’s much better to build up a portable toolkit of your own, something you can take anywhere and which (hopefully) will help you cope with just about any situation.

Finding the right tools can be a challenge, of course -- most just don’t have the versatility you need -- but a quick glance at its feature list suggests CloneDisk could be a very good candidate.

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The wires going to my TV look like a giant ball of black spaghetti. I have a TiVo, Blu-Ray player, Chromecast, Wii, Android box and Roku connected. While they all have a unique benefit, much functionality is duplicated. This is frustrating because it can be difficult to pick which device to use. If I want to watch Netflix, I will have to roll a 12-sided die from Dungeons and Dragons to select one of them.

Today, the founders of TiVo announce yet another inexpensive streaming media box -- the Qplay. While it has some unique tricks, it also appears to be a functionality duplicator. Heck, it is arguably just a more expensive Chromecast.

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