Latest Technology News

Google has announced new features in its Google+ app for Android aimed at making its social network a valuable workplace tool. On the company's enterprise blog, Joël Kalmanowicz, Product Manager, Google Apps Team says, "If you're a Google Apps for Business, Government or Education customer, today we're releasing a few new features designed to make it even easier for you to get things done with Google+".

The app now supports multiple accounts allowing you to sign in to both work and private profiles and easily switch between them. You can also create restricted posts that can't be shared outside your organization. There are new domain labels too, both in the app and on the web, allowing you to quickly identify your colleagues' profiles so you know that you're connecting and sharing with the right people.

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Microsoft has announced the launch of new channels to sell Surface RT and Surface Pro to business, education and public sector customers. In addition to the US commercial channel which launched in July, today's announcement sees 17 countries including Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK added to the list.

Writing in a blog post Cyril Belikoff, Director -- Microsoft Surface says, "This availability in international markets, along with the updates coming to Surface RT with Windows 8.1 are all important milestones for our customers. We know that people who use Surface love it! We’re looking forward to introducing even more customers in more places to the powerful productivity that Surface uniquely makes possible".

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I’m not the sort of person who gets excited about monitors. It’s what’s on the screen that matters after all. However, I have to say Acer’s new line up of LED display models has me salivating. In fact I had to turn down the offer of a review unit because I knew I wouldn’t want to give it back afterwards.

The three models boast up to an ultra-high 2560 by 1440 WQHD resolution and offer large 27 and 29 inch screens for multitasking, and viewing two images at once -- so they can be used to replace a multi-monitor set-up if you desire.

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Fifty-two years ago, three days before he left office and retired from Washington, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the nation on television with what he called "a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts…"

This came to be called Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex speech and was unlike any other address by Eisenhower or, indeed, by any of his predecessors. You can read the entire speech (it isn’t very long) here, or even watch it here, but I’ve also included below what I believe to be the most important passage:

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If you're in the US, you've had access to the Nexus 7 for a few weeks now. I'm in the UK which means that, technically, I have to wait until August 28 for the release on my side of the Atlantic. But the nice chaps at Google saw fit to wing a unit my way so I wouldn't have to wait. Lovely.

I was already aware of the experiences of my colleague Alan Buckingham who, stateside, had received his Nexus some time before me. He was understandably disappointed to find that the tablet he was sent was unusable; it would not boot.

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Google Maps has become adventurous -- what began as mapping, turned into street view of roads around the world and then morphed to bigger things, like underwater dives and hikes down amazing trails. All of this could be found, though it needed to be searched, but now the company wishes to unify all of this data in one location.

From the oceans to the lowest depths of the Grand Canyon, the search giant's team has traversed many of the coolest and most remote locations around the globe. And, a new website, appropriately named "Views" collates this data into a single location, including such far-flung locals as the Great Barrier Reef and Mount Everest.

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There are many things that make an email provider good -- features, spam blocking and of course, reliability. The latter is currently an issue, as the Outlook.com service is down.

As of 12:50pm EST, the web-based email service displays the following message: "We're having a problem accessing email. You might not be able to see all your email messages". It further states that, "We're working on the problem and will provide an update by August 14 2:00 PM. Thank you for your patience". This seems to be very widespread based on chatter around the Internet.

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With the upcoming release of the Jobs biopic Apple is set to be in the spotlight in coming weeks. It's timely then that the Finances Online website has released an interesting report tracing the iPhone’s supply chain.

It makes for fascinating reading. The rare earth minerals used in many of the phone’s components are 90 percent sourced in China and Inner Mongolia. Move up to the component level and the LCD panels, chipset, memory and batteries are all made in Korea. The iPhone 5's innovative display -- which eliminates a layer of glass -- is made by LG for example. The gyroscope that works out which way you’re holding the phone comes from STMicroelectronics, a French/Italian company.

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Microsoft may generally be thought of, and referred to, as a software maker, but the company continues to produce hardware -- keyboards and mice have been a staple of the line for nearly two decades, and were followed by the Xbox and tablets. Hardware has become a growing market for the company.

Now Microsoft unveils the latest in its line of desktop peripherals -- "The Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop is the latest evolution of Microsoft’s Natural line of ergonomic products which was first launched nearly 20 years ago in 1994", says Brandon Leblanc.

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A couple of days ago my colleague Wayne Williams looked at the new features in the latest leaked build of Windows 8.1 and now, hot on the heels of that, comes the announcement of the official release date for the OS refresh.

Set your alarm for 4am Pacific Time October 17 as this is when the much-anticipated update to Windows 8 will be unleashed on an eager public.

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The PC as we know it is dying, and tablets are unquestionably where the sales are right now. As a result, vendors and retailers are clamoring to pull in the consumers by ramping up their advertising spend and exposure.

In Q2 2013, according to data gathered by analyst firm gap intelligence, vendors and retailers placed a total of 771 tablet ads in print media in the US, up 266 from the same quarter last year, and while 83 percent of the adverts were for Android tablets, Windows devices made a big splash, accounting for 12 percent of all ads. When new products launch, or sales aren't great -- both true in this case -- it's quite typical to see an increase in ad spending in order to reach as many consumers as possible.

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Ashampoo has released Home Designer 2.0, a brand new version of its 3D home planning tool. The new release comes with a number of new features, from support for variable ceiling heights to customizable roof styles to help users plan, design and decorate their dream home both inside and out.

The program’s extended project wizard -- which aims to simplify the process of using the tool -- comes with a number of new steps in version 2.0, including the ability to enter project data such as location, planner and building contractor.

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California-based Ravello Systems has released its Cloud Application Hypervisor. It may have a name straight out of sci-fi, but this product allows enterprises to use public cloud platforms to test their in-house applications.

Differences in storage, networking and virtualization techniques have previously prevented the use of the cloud as a practical test platform. Ravello's software makes any public cloud look and feel exactly like the enterprise data center from an application's perspective.

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Shortly after Microsoft released its native YouTube Windows Phone 8 app in early-May, Google sent the software giant a cease and desist letter, demanding the app's removal from Store. The reasons, according to the document, centered on three main features that Microsoft baked-in, namely content download, an ad-free user experience and forgoing playback restrictions. The app was pulled from Windows Phone Store in late-May, and replaced with the older iteration.

Good news! Late-yesterday, following a collaboration with Google, Microsoft quietly launched a compliant YouTube Windows Phone 8 app. "We've released an updated YouTube app for Windows Phone that provides the great experience our consumers expect while addressing the concerns Google expressed in May, including the addition of ads", says Microsoft in a statement issued to me. "We appreciate Google's support in ensuring that Windows Phones customers have a quality YouTube experience and look forward to continuing the collaboration".

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Worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 435 million units in the second quarter of 2013, according to Gartner, notching up a moderate 3.6 percent increase over the 420 million units sold in the same period last year.

The big news however, is smartphone sales finally exceeded those of feature phones, with the former selling 225 million units, up 46.5 percent from the 153 million sold in the second quarter of 2012, and the latter managing just 210 million units for a 21 percent drop year-over-year.

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