Latest Technology News

Deciding which browser extensions are trustworthy has always been an uncertain business. If an add-on is highly rated, with plenty of users, then it should be safe… But as the recent issues over Chrome extensions showed, with popular add-ons being purchased and tweaked to push adverts, there are no guarantees.

Extension Defender is a new service which helps by cataloging malicious Chrome and Firefox extensions. This can be searched manually, but it's probably simpler to install the Chrome or Firefox extension, which can check and protect your system automatically.

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LinkedIn, a popular social site for the business crowd, carries a lot of benefits for customers. There is the opportunity for networking, along with finding work. To that end, like any social network, the company has strived to find ways to enhance its offerings and make things more appealing.

It has not always succeeded, and one such failure is about to be killed off. Intro was an app for iPhone that insinuated itself into the user's email, and was perhaps a bad idea from the start.

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The biggest news of the week has to be the appointment of Satya Nadella as CEO at Microsoft, which brought to an end weeks of speculation and rumor. Bill Gates also stepped down as chairman. A leaked version of Windows 8.1 Update 1 appeared online giving us all a sneak peek of what we can expect to see in the upcoming release -- including context menus on the Start screen, a new enterprise mode in Internet Explorer, and different ways of working with modern apps. Ahead of this big release, it was Windows XP that was showing growth rather than Microsoft's latest operating system.

In other Microsoft news, Xbox One's first big update was revealed to be coming up on 11 February. Sony announced that it was selling its VAIO business to enable it to focus its attention on mobile devices. Business and individuals who rely on 37signals' products found that the company was not only changing its name, but also dropping all of its services apart from Basecamp. There was another blow for Bitcoin as the online currency was effectively banned in Russia.

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You might think that Russia has just about enough on its plate at the moment, what with having the Winter Olympics to host and fending off global accusations of homophobia, but the Central Bank of Russia has found the time to slap a ban on Bitcoin. This is not the first country to outlaw the online currency -- it's something that has already been done by Thailand and it's being considered by others.

The General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation looked into "the so-called virtual currencies" phenomenon and found that there was a risk of Bitcoin being used for money laundering. The damning ruling refers to Bitcoin and other similar currencies as "money substitutes". Citing Article 27 of the Federal Law, the General Prosecutor said that "the official currency of the Russian Federation is the ruble", going on to say that money issued in other forms is prohibited.

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The app market has exploded but only a few apps will survive in the long haul. The ability to monetize will be the defining factor. Fortunately, innovations in mobile technology have emerged to make monetization possible with in-app advertising and in-app purchase models.

There was a lot of hullabaloo around Snapchat recently when its founders declined a US$3 billion buyout offer from Facebook. That raised the question of whether it was being grossly overvalued given its revenue deficit. Other popular apps make revenue but are losing money: music apps Pandora and Spotify are prime examples. Why, then, are the valuations so astronomical? It’s because they have an audience. But is that good enough?

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Paragon Software Group has released Paragon Backup & Recovery 2014 Free for Windows PCs, a major refresh of its drive-imaging and restore tool. The tool, now available as a separate 64-bit build for the first time, adds full support for Windows 8.1, Storage Spaces and UEFI.

It also introduces a New Backup Format tab, allowing users to back up, browse and restore to and from a virtual disk drive format. There’s also a refreshed UI and updated recovery media builder added, allowing users to create a Linux-based recovery disc.

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SingularLabs has updated its optimization tool System Ninjato version 3.0 with the addition of a paid-for Pro version.

Both the free and Pro versions benefit from faster and more efficient junk scanning. In addition, the Startup Manager now uses an internal blacklist to highlight startup programs which should be removed.

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Sixty-seventh in a series. Microsoft continues its efforts to remove unwanted applications from its Windows 8 store. That's the reason why this week's growth is negative.

The total number of applications dropped by 534 apps to 105,509 thanks to efforts to clean up the store's Entertainment, Photo, Lifestyle and Education categories. The Entertainment category alone lost 659 apps in the past seven days.

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Missed appointments cost health services and other businesses a significant amount of money, estimated at millions of dollars each year. Los Angeles-based marketing firm Screenpush is aiming to change that with the launch of Notifly.

Notifly works by sending out text message reminders in the run up to an appointment, prompting patients or customers to either confirm or cancel. On the business side of things a color-coded interface makes it easy to track each day's appointments and work around changes.

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For many people across the globe making payments using their smartphones remains a thing of the future. Unlike credit and debit cards, for which there exist compatible devices in lots of locations to facilitate purchases, mobile payments require retailers to install new gadgets and smartphone owners to use special apps, which have to be supported by their bank and/or mobile operator of choice. It is a mess, really, at this point, as I have found out while trying to enable such a feature on my smartphone.

Mobile payments are easier to enable on smartphones which have NFC or a microSD card slot, and trickier to offer on handsets that do not. In the latter scenario, a case is needed in order for the feature to work. Luckily, for iPhone users on Verizon such an accessory and dedicated app are now available.

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Sixth in a series. I'm a massive fan of the Broken Sword series of games, so this week was a great one for me as I finally got to download and start playing the brand new Broken Sword adventure on iOS. I'm pleased to report it doesn't disappoint. Thanks to mobile devices (and Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns) classic adventure series are getting a whole new lease of life, which is fantastic. Fans of classic games will be thrilled to know there's a "new" Final Fantasy game out this week too.

With the Winter Olympics upon us, Apple has gathered together a collection of official Sochi 2014 apps, including the Athletes’ Hub which is well worth a download.

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Having quality, official apps available, and frequently improving, for popular services is a key part in increasing Windows Phone's chances of breaking into market share double digits and, therefore, getting more developers to consider releasing their offerings in the Store.

While third-party alternatives have already proved to be viable options, it is clear by looking at the Store rankings that Windows Phone users have an undeniable craving for installing the real deal. Official apps lend more credence, after all, and are less likely to be removed without prior notice, unlike their unofficial counterparts. And this brings us to the Flickr app which Yahoo has officially admitted it no longer has any plans to update.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NiyMbkNBn30

Over 1000+ hours of live footage covering 98 Winter Olympics events, all being broadcasted over numerous digital and TV avenues -- simultaneously. As an infrastructure geek at heart, and someone who consults clients on their networks, I can't even fathom what kind of backbone is needed to stream a worldwide event like the Olympics. But NBC has fallen back on a familiar face in the cloud arena to make this magic happen: Microsoft.

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The Galaxy S4 is approaching its one-year anniversary and, to keep things interesting before its successor arrives to take the helm, Samsung has announced a new Black Edition version of the popular Android smartphone. Not to leave the smaller mini out of the equation, the South Korean maker is also giving it the same makeover.

Black Edition makes me think of hardcore variants of Mercedes AMG cars, which usually offer more power on tap than the base models. However, this is not the case when it comes to the two new Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S4 mini trims that come without beefed up internals. Basically, what we are looking at here folks is smartphone plastic surgery.

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Piriform Software has released Defraggler 2.17 and Defraggler Portable 2.17, updated builds of its freeware defragmentation tool for Windows. Version 2.17’s main highlight is the addition of a new Statistics tab, alongside SSD optimizations and progress information being displayed via the program’s System tray icon.

The update also comes with the promise of various optimizations, performance tweaks and the usual slew of bug fixes and minor GUI improvements.

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