Microsoft touts SkyDrive numbers, announces new features
Microsoft announced the new Office 2013 / Office 365 release on January 29th and the new suite, no matter which version of it you choose, comes with tight integration with the company's cloud storage service, SkyDrive. You do not have to use it -- you can still store your files locally, but it makes for easier work when a document can easily be accessed from everywhere and shared with co-workers.
However, apparently a lot of people are taking advantage of the feature, because today Microsoft's Sarah Filman, lead program manager for SkyDrive, announces that the service now stores a lot of files -- "Recently we reached a big milestone; our customers are now storing over a billion Office documents on SkyDrive".
LastPass improves security and launches new Windows 8 app
Browser password manager LastPass 2.0.20 has been released for all major web browsers. The new release, also available for 64-bit versions of Windows is accompanied by the LastPass for Windows 8 app, which gives users access to their LastPass account directly from the Modern UI interface in Windows 8.
Version 2.0.20 now automatically calculates the user’s security score and displays it next to the Security Challenge link in the user’s vault. It also extends support -- albeit in beta -- to the Maxthon web browser.
Sony details the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean upgrade for Xperia smartphones
Sony's Android 4.1 Jelly Bean upgrade for 2012 Xperia smartphones is a long time coming. The Japanese manufacturer announced its plans in mid-October last year, and followed it up with a brief update two months later. Finally, as planned, deployment is set to kick off "this week".
The first smartphones to receive the coveted upgrade to the original Jelly Bean iteration are the Xperia T and Xperia, with Xperia TX owners having to wait until next month for the same software treatment. In an attempt to appease impatient users and to drum up some interest, Sony has decided to spill the beans on what Android 4.1 Jelly Bean entails for Xperia users by providing a list of significant changes included in the upgrade.
Get Aero back in Windows 8
Windows 8 fans didn't take Microsoft's decision to dump the familiar Aero Glass interface lightly. Even though the software corporation has very good reasons for doing so, there are users who are willing to put up with the apparent disadvantages and want to bring the transparency back.
Microsoft is known for its stance on the matter and it is unlikely that the software giant will be persuaded to bring Aero Glass back in Windows 8 and, therefore, eat its own words about the advantages of the new interface. For this reason, and likely others as well, a developer decided to take matters into his own hands and release a hack that brings back Aero Glass into the Windows 8 Desktop Window Manager.
Microsoft’s attacks on Google are sad and embarrassing
After I left school I went into sales. And one of the first things I was taught was this: never disparage the competition. Never say bad things about them -- even if what you’re saying is true, or you believe it to be at least -- because it makes the firm you’re representing seem petty and small.
Clearly this is a lesson Microsoft needs to learn. The firm’s marketing department, in particular whoever came up with the Scroogled campaign, is doing its best to turn the Redmond, Wash.-based technology giant into a petty, whining child, complaining about a rival rather than championing its own products. Instead of shouting triumphantly, "Use Outlook.com because it’s great and has all these benefits", Microsoft is reduced to grumbling, "Don’t use Gmail because it reads your emails". It’s not an aggressive information campaign as some people have described it. It’s a sad and frankly pathetic strategy.
Need a truly useful dictionary? Try TheSage
When you need to use a dictionary then the quickest solution is usually to head off online. There are plenty of excellent free services available, and if you’re just looking for a quick definition then they’ll probably do a very good job.
If you need more, though – more frequent lookups, better searching features, more options and control -- then there’s still a case for installing a dictionary application. And TheSage is the perfect example.
iPhone cracks against the Great Wall of China
The Chinese smartphone market is dominated by five top manufacturers, none of them Apple, Canalys reveals. As I've warned a couple times recently, despite CEO Tim Cook's prognostications about China's importance or his company boasting 2 million first-weekend iPhone 5 sales, competitors rapidly close out the market for costly fruit-logos.
China is the biggest market for mobiles, largely dominated by smartphones -- 73 percent of the total in fourth quarter, up from 40 percent a year earlier. Shipments soared 113 percent to 64.7 million units, or 30 percent of all smartphones globally. Samsung captured the top spot, followed by Lenovo, Yulong, Huawei and ZTE.
Don't expect too much from Rootkit Remover
Bitdefender Labs has released Bitdefender Rootkit Remover, a free stand-alone tool for dealing with known rootkits.
The company report that Rootkit Remover can remove infections from a wide range of threats, including Mebroot, all TDL families (TDL/SST/Pihar), Mayachok, Mybios, Plite, XPaj, Whistler, Alipop, Cpd, Fengd, Fips, Guntior, MBR Locker, Mebratix, Niwa, Ponreb, Ramnit, Stoned, Yoddos, Yurn, Zegost and Necurs, amongst others.
Accidental Empires Part 3 -- 1991 edition preface
Third in a series. Editor: In parts 1 and 2 of this serialization, Robert X. Cringely presents an updated intro to his landmark rise-of-Silicon Valley book Accidental Empires. Here he presents the original preface from the first edition.
The woman of my dreams once landed a job as the girls’ English teacher at the Hebrew Institute of Santa Clara. Despite the fact that it was a very small operation, her students (about eight of them) decided to produce a school newspaper, which they generally filled with gossipy stories about each other. The premiere issue was printed on good stock with lots of extra copies for grandparents and for interested bystanders like me.
More Americans take Facebook vacations
That's not on the social network but away from it. Bad for Facebook: The youngest, and presumably most active users, are the most likely to step away this year for prolonged breaks, according to Pew Internet.
"Sixty-one percent of current Facebook users say that at one time or another in the past they have voluntarily taken a break from using Facebook for a period of several weeks or more", according to report "Coming and Going on Facebook", which published this week.
Microsoft sends Live Mesh execution-date reminders
Perhaps it is just me, but Microsoft's decision to take Live Mesh off of life-support has hit especially hard. We knew this was coming of course, but still, I like having my files synced between multiple computers and, while I love SkyDrive, I do not need the cloud as an intermediary within my own home -- that is ridiculous overkill and would cost me money as well.
Today the company dispatched email reminders that began "Dear Mesh customer, Recently we released the latest version of SkyDrive, which you can use to..." Yes, thanks a lot. I know what I can use it for, but syncing between computers in my home is not something I should be compelled to use it for.
Believe it, smartphones and tablets make people use PCs less
What a difference three years make. In April 2010 I asked "Will iPad cannibalize Mac sales?" and a month later PC sales. Fast-forward 12 months, NPD answered a definitive "No". I disagreed: "Call me cynical and skeptical, but I'm convinced that changing behavior will cause many smartphone buyers, and many more tablet adopters, to delay PC upgrades".
Today, NPD sees things a little differently, based on fresh survey data that puts context behind two years of declining PC sales -- that despite Windows 8's release little more than three months ago. The firm finds that 37 percent of US consumers now access content on smartphones or tablets they used to on PCs. Changing behavior like this affects computer sales, as consumers shift behavior and delay PC upgrades or don't buy ever.
LibreOffice 4.0 arrives -- get it NOW!
The Document Foundation released LibreOffice 4.0 FINAL. The open-source, cross-platform productitivty suite, which is based on OpenOffice, has evolved to the point where the developers are happy to assign a major new version number.
Version 4.0 includes a number of relatively minor new features, but the big changes will come under the hood, marking the first radical development in the program’s API since the app it was built on -- OpenOffice -- was first released. Other changes include support for Firefox Personas, integration with CMS and online storage providers, plus support for importing both Microsoft Publisher and the latest VISIO documents.
What happens when Lego meets Android?
Nothing says geek quite like Lego. Come on -- you know you secretly still love those tiny multi-colored bricks from your youth. Except now they are not just bricks, and the simple projects of our youth have become the incredibly complex projects of our children's youth...that we still love to "help out" with.
Lego Cuusoo is a "Labs" type of project where customers can suggest future kits and if the item gets at least 10,000 supporters then Lego pledges to consider producing it. And now the company is faced with an Android project that easily passed that requirement yesterday evening.
Microsoft launches 'Don’t Get Scroogled by Gmail' campaign to stop Google 'going through personal emails'
Microsoft's efforts to downplay Google's Gmail over its own Outlook.com service are well known amongst the tech crowd. In late-November the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation claimed that a third of new Outlook.com signups were people switching from Google's email service, and after the web giant dropped support for EAS, Microsoft quickly advised Gmail users to make the same switch. Now Microsoft is at it again, launching a new crusade titled "Don't Get Scroogled by Gmail".
The purpose of the campaign, according to the software firm, is to "educate consumers that Google goes through their personal emails to sell ads". Don't Get Scroogled by Gmail is aimed at American Gmail users and is supported by a GfK Roper study commissioned by Microsoft that found "70 percent of consumers don’t know that major email providers routinely engage in the practice of reading through their personal email to sell ads", with a vast majority of people, 88 percent, disapproving of this practise once the information was brought to their attention.
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