Five things Microsoft is doing right
It’s really easy to pick Microsoft apart and find reasons to hate the company. The software giant has spent years making decisions that gave the tech press and writers like myself reason to negatively criticize everything it does.
Microsoft has its problems, sure, but not everything suggests it's dead in the water. The firm has made some pretty bold bets recently; bets that I think are actually good and signal the arrival of a different Microsoft than the one we're all accustomed to kicking in the teeth. Here’s five things I think Microsoft is getting right.
Opera Next 16 hints at new features
Norwegian browser developer Opera Software has confirmed the switch of its browser development to a rapid release cycle with the launch of Opera Next 16. The new version number comes less than a month after Opera 15 FINAL was released, which saw Opera switch from its own proprietary Presto web engine to the Blink engine used by Google Chrome.
As with all rapid release cycle updates, there are no major overhauls to be found in Opera Next 16, although a number of interesting new features have been showcased as the next iteration starts its journey towards final release.
Best Windows 8 apps this week
Thirty-ninth in a series. The total number of new apps in Windows Store still lingers at around the 2,000 mark. While that may not sound that bad on first glance, much of it was fuelled by apps being released to a single store category.
The Music & Video section saw an increase of more than 1,200 apps this week, which means that more than half of this week's new selection have been published to that category.
Microsoft wants to give away Windows 8 computers in student deal
Last month, June 4 to be precise, Microsoft announced its "Chip in" program, designed to help students finance a new Windows 8 computer. The program lets students with a valid .edu email address crowd-source funds to help them purchase a qualified PC of their choosing from Microsoft Store.
Now the software maker elects to take it one step further, by sweetening this deal. Students must successfully fund their PC, but Microsoft chips in 10 percent of the price and the first 10,000 to be successful in this venture get a free copy of Office 365 University added into the bargain.
Samsung dominates smartphone market, squashes Apple and other makers
There is a very good reason as to why some people easily dismiss any report on the state of the smartphone, tablet or phone market. Research companies often get their forecasts wrong, and just as often adjust the numbers to reflect any significant change in shipments or sales. Credibility is gained over a long period of time, through spot-on analysis and research, but is easily lost after a questionable report.
Truth be told, predicting the future is a fool's errand. Those who rely on forecasts in order to make their case are just as likely to withdraw their bold remarks once the quarterly or yearly reports arrive. The credibility issue grows bigger when two research companies, namely IDC and Strategy Analytics, cannot agree on counting smartphone shipments, in a single quarter.
Now TV box is cheap alternative to Apple TV for UK viewers, but with a catch
Like the idea of Apple TV but feel the hardware is a little expensive? Today Sky releases its Now TV Box to UK fans for the ultra-low price of £9.99. This is significantly cheaper than Apple's flagship streaming device, and even manages to undercut Google's Chromecast. With the price tag including not just the device itself, but also delivery, there's got to be a catch, right?
The WiFi streaming box provides access to on-demand content from the broadcasters such as Sky, BBC and Channel 5, including sports and movies. There's also the option of using apps such as Spotify and Facebook to transform a regular TV into a smart TV. So far, so couch potato.
Google Chromecast -- greatness in its infancy [Review]
Consuming digital media can be an overwhelming affair nowadays. There are too many devices on the market that do similar things but in different ways. There is the Apple TV, Roku, Blu-Ray Players, smart TVs and more. When Google announced the Chromecast, I was a bit skeptical -- surely I didn't need yet another device. However, the low price of the product ($35) and the fear of it selling out caused me to order it anyway.
When it arrived, I was shocked by just how small the packaging was. Upon opening the little box (OK, tearing into it) I was presented with the Chromecast. The device looks like a very fat flash-drive with an HDMI plug instead of USB. Also in the box was an HDMI extender cable, micro-USB cable and AC power adapter.
Lock up your data ecommerce companies are warned
According to Imperva's recent Web Application Attack Report most applications have suffered attacks four or more times per month whilst some are under almost constant attack. In addition retail sites suffer twice the number of SQL injection attacks compared to other industries.
The report also finds that the US tops the list globally as the source of web-based attacks.
Nokia Lumia 1020 is NOW available at AT&T
Following ten days of pre-orders, the Nokia Lumia 1020 is now finally available for purchase at US mobile operator AT&T. Through its online store, the Windows Phone 8 handset can be had for $299.99, on a two-year agreement. Other plans are also available, including the new AT&T Next. The smartphone is not yet offered at the mobile operator's brick and mortar locations.
Subscribers who want to get the Lumia 1020 through the AT&T Next program have to shell out $33 per month, over the course of 20 months. Alternatively, folks can pay the fees and, in a year (or, every 12 months), trade in their existing handset for a new one.
Microsoft's modern.IE scanning tool goes open source
Microsoft rolled out Internet Explorer 11 Preview for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 yesterday, and also updated modern.IE -- a set of tools and resources designed to make developing for the browser just a little bit easier.
The software giant additionally announced that the modern.IE scanner, which analyzes the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript of a site or application looking for common coding issues, is now open source (under Apache 2.0 license) and available to download from GitHub.
Kaspersky tops real world protection test
Independent testing organisation AV-Comparatives has released the results of its real world protection test for March to June 2013. The tests use each security suite on its default settings and live URLs that point to malware executables along with drive-by exploits.
Using a total of 1,972 test cases over the four month period the results show that all of the major security packages offer high levels of protection. Bitdefender and Kaspersky top the charts with 99.9 percent protection levels, F-Secure also manages 99.9 but ranks slightly lower as it relied on user interaction to block three of the threats.
Internet Explorer 11 Developer Preview now available for Windows 7
Almost a month after launching Internet Explorer as a key part of the Windows 8.1 preview, Microsoft has today launched a stand-alone Internet Explorer 11 Developer Preview for Windows 7.
The new release places a major focus on performance. JPEG decoding, text rendering and WebGL support will make the most of GPU acceleration; HTML 5 prefetching and pre-rendering helps to get pages ready before you even click the link; and optimizations to Chakra, IE’s JavaScript engine, mean it’s even faster than before.
Google Chromecast -- Fabulous product or fabulous demo?
Yesterday Google announced a product called Chromecast -- a $35 HDMI dongle that’s essentially YouTube’s answer to Apple TV. While the event was more Googlish than Applesque (the venue was too small, the screens were too small, the presenters weren’t polished, and as a result the laughs and applause didn’t come) the product itself was astonishing -- or appeared to be.
The press picked-up on the most obvious headline item in the announcement -- the $35 selling price which drops to $11 if you factor in three months of free Netflix per dongle even for existing Netflix customers (now sadly dropped). That’s like Google attaching an $8 bill to every Chromecast -- something Apple would never do.
Mozilla: Browsers could share your interests with websites
Your web browser records everything you do on the web. It knows where you go, it knows where you’ve been, what your favorite websites are, and it likely even knows your passwords. But fortunately it doesn’t share that information with the world. At least not yet.
Mozilla, the non-profit behind Firefox, is proposing to change that. The organization wants your browser to be able to tell websites the sort of things you’re into, allowing those sites to serve up personalized content tailored just for you.
Suck it up -- you're still going to get spied on after House votes for continued NSA surveillance
A move to close down NSA surveillance of US phone records bites the dust after a vote at the House of Representatives. The closely fought battle ended with a nail-bitingly tight vote that saw 217 votes against limiting the Agency's data collection abilities and 205 for.
Republican Justin Amash looked to end the indiscriminate collecting of phone records that was brought to light by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Rather than looking to simply stop the NSA's actions, the proposed amendment took a slightly different approach and aimed to block funding instead.
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