Latest Technology News

Evernote Corporation has unveiled Skitch for Desktop 2.0 for Windows, a brand new version of its photo annotation and sketch tool. The new version boasts a major update to its user interface, plus offers streamlined sharing options.

Skitch is designed to be used in conjunction with Evernote, allowing users to store annotated photos within their notes for future viewing and editing. Images can also be saved to the user’s hard drive.

Windows software management is a tedious business. If you want to download a particular program, you have to find the relevant website, then the download link, save the file locally, grab any other components the program might need, and install everything in the right order. You’ll need to start again for every new program. And they’ll all have their own procedures for updating, or uninstalling.

What if you could automate all of this, though? Manage downloads, updates and everything else, just with a few keypresses? That’s the aim of Chocolatey, a tool which brings Linux-like package management to the PC.

On Wednesday, Jawbone announced that the companion app for the UP wristband is finally available for Android. Green droid users can now track the way they "sleep, move and eat 24/7" on a number of popular Android smartphones, ranging from the HTC Droid DNA to the Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Alongside the announcement, Jawbone also revealed a couple of interesting statistics related to the UP wristband community. The company says that the community "gets the most sleep on the weekends", "is most engaged in logging meals on Mondays", "has shown that activity doesn't necessarily mean working out: users get the steps on Fridays, but workout most on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays" and "take the least steps on Saturdays and Sundays".

Launch most photo editors for the first time and they’ll try to impress you with their serious credentials: flyout toolbars, feature-packed menus and so on.

Run the free PhoXo, though, and what you’ll notice first is the Clip Art window, all smiling emoticons and cartoon pigs. Not much chance of doing any serious work here, you might think, but wait -- give the program a little time and you just might change your mind.

Team XBMC has released XBMC 12.1 FINAL, a major maintenance update for its open-source, cross-platform media server/center. Version 12.1 includes AirPlay optimizations, iOS 6 support on the AppleTV 2 and enables the full iPhone 5 resolution.

XBMC also recently unveiled the early developmental version of XBMC 13, codenamed “Gotham”. Early development for version 13 includes support for the UPNP “Play using…” feature, library improvements with new TV Show and Music Video tags as well as inbuilt support for alternative media art.

There are plenty of ways to launch programs using hotkeys, and even Windows has one of its own (right-click a shortcut, select Properties > Shortcut and click the “Shortcut key” box), but remembering enough of these to cope with all your applications is extremely difficult.

The open source MadAppLauncher takes a different approach, though, which is very much simpler. It uses a simple QWERTY-type layout, and allows you to assign one program to each key. The relevant application icon and name is displayed alongside the key letter, so if you press H, say, whatever is in the H box will be launched.

Keeping with our ongoing "Ding, Dong, the PC's dead" theme, NPD reports that businesses with 50 to 999 employees will spend more on technology this year. That's good news for PC manufacturers but much, much better for anyone selling tablets -- or the ecosystem supporting them. SMBs are suddenly a bright light cast against vast darkness. Yesterday, IDC warned that PC shipments would fall double-digits during first quarter.

Somebody is buying, at least. Thirty percent of SMBs surveyed by NPD plan to increase PC spending -- that's up from 22 percent just three months ago. Woot! Woot! "PCs are still a core part of the technology arsenal of the typical U.S. corporate employee and a regular rotation of new and upgraded equipment is part of best practices for most mid-sized U.S. businesses", Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis, says.

Way back in the deep, dark early days of Rebox Instant by Verizon, I got the opportunity to take the streaming service for a test drive. We later learned that the service would be exclusive to the Xbox 360 -- at least as far as gaming consoles are concerned. That exclusivity begins today.

Larry Hryb, better known as Major Nelson to Xbox fans everywhere, announces that "the Redbox Instant by Verizon app is available on Xbox 360 now", though he asterisks this statement with some fine print to let consumers know that they will need that Xbox Live Gold subscription in order to take advantage of the new video-on-demand goodies.

When I first started using the web full time 19 years ago, few pages had movement. Then browsers supported animated gifts, which on many sites were gaudy things. You could count on them to add a touch of crass, no class, to any webpage. MySpace anyone? My disdain, and I'm not alone in this, for animated gifs goes back nearly two decades.

Funny thing, the moving clips are in-style thanks to better authoring tools and social sharing. Many animated gifs are still gaudy, but who really minds getting one as a joke from friends. Now they're easier to find using the planet's most popular search engine.

It is officially that time of the year -- when grown men call in sick to sit home and watch younger men and women play basketball. In other words, it's March Madness time. While you are watching those games, and possibly cursing your bracket choices, Microsoft would like to have a bit of your attention.

While the company's first big Microsoft mobile viral campaign, known as Smoked by Windows Phone, seemed to pop up everywhere and get all sorts of attention, the latest campaign has kept a much lower profile.

Cloud storage providers Dropbox and Microsoft SkyDrive have both released minor maintenance updates for their desktop applications. Both Dropbox 2.0.2 and the Windows version of Microsoft SkyDrive 2013 v17.0.2006.0314 are minor maintenance releases with no new features.

Both updates are the first since major releases -- Dropbox 2.0introduced a new sharing-friendly user interface, while SkyDrive 17.0 allowed users to selectively sync folders and sub-folders to specific devices.

Many people use Really Simple Syndication without actually realizing it. Like SMTP in the background of email, RSS is the backbone of a number of things, including the podcasts you get from the iTunes store. Last week Google set off on an apparent challenge to kill RSS, or at least it seems that way to many of us.

Overshadowed in all of our talk, gripes really, about the loss of Google Reader is removal its RSS extension from the Chrome store. The extension placed the, now familiar, orange square in the URL bar and allowed users to easily subscribe to feeds by clicking and sending them to Google Reader.

If you want to get any more work done today, read no further! Google unveiled the "Peanut Gallery" a fun, silent-move-making tool showcasing the Web Speech API released with Chrome 25 last month. You could fritter away hours creating and sharing funny clips.

"We thought it would be fun to demonstrate this new technology by using an old one: silent film", Google's Aaron Koblin explains. "The Peanut Gallery lets you add intertitles to old black-and-white movie clips just by talking out loud while you watch them. Create a film and share it with friends, so they can bring out their inner screenwriters too".

Microsoft is under heavy fire from disgruntled folks across the web after revealing that Windows Phone 8 will only be supported for 18 months, with the end date July 8, 2014. The news shocked many, generating debate and speculation about what happens after the deadline passes.

In a Twitter post that followed shortly to calm the waters, Microsoft tries to reassure users that the end may not be as near as it seems. The software giant states: "As we’ve said, one benefit of moving to the Windows core is that Windows Phone 8 is upgradeable". Microsoft therefore suggests that current devices running Windows Phone 8 can in fact be upgraded to an upcoming iteration of the smartphone operating system.

The tiniest of details can sometimes lead to the thorniest of problems, which Google may discover with its brand new Nexus 10 ad which debuted today. The video seems innocent enough -- it follows a young couple through nine months of pregnancy as they plan for their new bundle of joy and discuss what to name the baby boy.

However, if you scroll through the comments of the just-posted one minute ad, you will find something interesting. Commentor Ram Gadde points out that "sex determination of fetus is prohibited in India". He then later opines that he thinks, for that reason, "this ad will be banned in India".