Latest Technology News

If you’re the creative type then the idea of designing your own games can seem appealing. For a moment or two, anyway, until you began to think about exactly how many technical challenges you’d need to overcome in order to make this dream a reality.

You don’t have to handle everything on your own, though. Spring is a capable, versatile and open-source 3D RTS engine that can take care of many of the low-level gaming tasks, leaving you to get on with the more important design decisions.

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Third-largest U.S. wireless network operator Sprint on Wednesday announced it will be acquiring $480 million worth of wireless spectrum from eighth-largest carrier U.S. Cellular in various markets in five different midwest states.

The spectrum licenses encompass 10MHz or 20MHz blocks of space in the 1900 MHz band, the band Sprint is building its 4G LTE network upon. These expanded areas of coverage, which include urban areas of Chicago, St. Louis, South Bend, Indiana and Champaign, Illinois, will be included in Sprint's overarching Network Vision upgrade which began last year.

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Valve has announced the launch of its Steam for Linux client as a limited access beta. Testers of the invite-only service were chosen from a large pool of applicants (over 60,000 people applied within the first week), with priority given to experienced Linux users.

Initially only available for Ubuntu 12.04+, with more distros to be added in the future, the beta client gives testers access to the free-to-play Team Fortress 2, as well as two dozen additional Steam titles, including Serious Sam 3: BFE, Trine 2, World of Goo, and Darwinia. The beta also includes the Big Picture mode, which allows Steam to be viewed on a TV and interacted with using a game controller.

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Rooting is a guilty pleasure. The practice may start out innocently, but can void the phone's warranty. Some manufacturers try to prevent users from running apps with elevated privileges, arguing compromised security. Not that the assertion stops enthusiasts.

Android is less restrictive than some platforms. Google actually allows apps that require root access on the Play app store. You're probably intrigued, as there are quite a few attractive choices available that only run with elevated privileges. Let's approach some of the major advantages to rooting Android, that also highlight part of its charm in modding.

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Two weeks ago Microsoft announced Xbox SmartGlass with app availability on major platforms. Following the initial release, the company introduced an updated version of Xbox SmartGlass for the iPhone and iPad.

Just like with other platforms, Xbox SmartGlass 2.0 for iOS allows Apple-branded smartphones and tablets to connect and interact with an Xbox 360 console. The app can remotely control the game console, using the touchscreen interface, allowing one to resume, rewind or advance content like videos and music.

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The respected system benchmarking and analysis tool SiSoft Sandra has been updated to the 2013 version bringing not only support for Windows 8 but a raft of other enhancements. Of course, support for the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system is only to be expected, so it’s interesting to look elsewhere to see where updates have been made. Users of one of the commercial version of the program can take advantage of a new update notification system that provides details of available updates for drivers and BIOSes.

SiSoft Sandra is a valued benchmarking utility and the 2013 release includes changes to the way benchmarking is carried out. It is always possible that a particularly low or high benchmark result comes about as a result of a problem with a piece of hardware. A new Device Performance Certification compares the benchmark results for different devices with other Sandra users to determine average results, making it possible to weed out results which are unusual one-offs.

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Go searching online for a text editor with a little more power than Notepad and you’ll quickly come across a host of programmer-oriented tools. And if you’re not a developer then all the talk of “code templates” and “syntax highlighting” may persuade you that these will be overkill, irrelevant to your needs, and so leave you to carry on your search elsewhere.

In reality, though, programmer’s editors don’t necessarily have to be such specialist tools. LopeEdit Lite, for instance, is an excellent Notepad replacement which isn’t just for developers: anyone could benefit from its many and varied abilities.

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The Android community expects Motorola to change its ways and release devices with fewer software limitations, similar to the Nexus lineup that Google offers. Developers and enthusiasts demand unlocked bootloaders so that they can tinker with the device, so Motorola aims to please that audience with the Atrix HD Developer Edition.

The newly-introduced model will join the Bootloader Unlock program, which already includes smartphones such as the Droid Razr HD, Razr HD and Razr i. The company warns that the Atrix HD Developer Edition is not for the faint of heart, but prospective buyers should expect a voided warranty if the bootloader is unlocked instead of riding into the danger zone. Just like with other Developer Edition models, it will sport the same hardware specifications as the normal version.

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Google has announced the release of Chrome 23 to the stable channel, and it’s an interesting update, with some welcome developments.

New support for GPU-accelerated video decoding will reduce the load on your system’s CPU, for instance. And as GPU’s use less power than your primary processor, this can notably extend your battery life (Google’s own testing suggests you could see up to a 25-percent improvement).

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer rarely writes a check this big: $8.5 billion -- that's what he paid for Skype in May 2011. So surely, he will get some value for his money. The communications client is this year's rock star, popping up in more new Microsoft products than American-made cars in Big B's garage. One more triumph remains. Months after removing "Windows Live" from Messenger's name, Microsoft will kill the product, replacing it with Skype. Please, let's pause for a silent moment of respect. Yes, you can shed a tear. I've got a hanky if you need one.

"We will retire Messenger in all countries worldwide in the first quarter of 2013 -- with the exception of mainland China where Messenger will continue to be available", Tony Bates, head of Microsoft's Skype division, says. Cue the violins. Surely Skype for Windows 8, but no Messenger in sight, foreshadowed something. The timing makes sense, following Windows 8's launch and coming around when Microsoft makes Office 2013 available to everyone. The messaging software is essential to both, as well as Windows Phone 8.

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Next week, private social networking startup Unison is launching on both the iOS and Android platforms, so enterprise users can have mobile access to all the features of the browser-based version of Unison, plus persistent presence and voice note chatting from your mobile device.

The overall impact of social media on the enterprise sector is difficult to measure. It has changed interpersonal communications, it has changed the information cycle, and it has changed the way companies observe and interact with their customers. Though the impact is still difficult to measure, it's relatively easy to create a picture of the overall enterprise social media landscape with qualitative assessments.

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While security company Kaspersky Labs recently gave Microsoft high marks late last week, it seems that it has given a failing grade to Google for version 2.3 of its Android mobile operating system.

Kaspersky's recent numbers show the Gingerbread release, specifically version 2.3.6, is the most highly targeted Android OS for malware developers, and Trojan SMS leads the way. That is followed, a bit distantly, by Java, which has also been a thorn in the side of computer users recently. While this is bad news for Google, it does have a silver lining.

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As my colleague Tim Conneally recently reported, Microsoft Surface with Windows RT does not allow users to take advantage of the total amount of advertised storage. On Reddit Ricardo Lopez, Test Manager for Surface RT, announced that customers can still take advantage of more than 20GB of free space, but the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation begs to differ.

Microsoft added a "Surface disk space FAQ" on its website in order to officially shed some light as to the amount of free internal storage that is left after the operating system and apps take their cut. As it turns out after all the math is done, there are dramatic changes. The 32GB Surface with Windows RT only has 16GB of free storage, while the 64GB version allows users to take advantage of 46GB, 30GB more than its less expensive brother.

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If you’re a software reviewer or a blogger, a gamer or just looking for an easy way to take screenshots, there are plenty of tools to choose from. For anyone keen on sticking with what Windows has to offer, there’s the Snipping Tool but there are numerous other tools available if you like the idea of something a little more advanced. One of the leading commercial tools is SnagIt, but for many people this is restrictively priced. SnapCrab is a free screen capture tool that offers much of SnagIt’s feature set in a well-rounded package.

As you would expect, this is an app that is hotkey driven, and you can create keyboard shortcuts to grab the active window, the entire desktop, or just a selection. You can opt to have the cursor included or ignored and there are extensive options that allow for the automatic naming of files based on the date, time, program being used and numerous other variables. By default your images are saved as PNGs but there are other formats to choose from.

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Windows 8 ships with two versions of Internet Explorer 10. First, the regular version that runs on the desktop and packs all the features one would expect from a browser, and then the Start screen version of IE10, which is a plug-in free version that is limited in what you can do with it on the Internet and locally.

Microsoft has integrated Adobe's Flash Player natively into Internet Explorer 10, but there are again differences in the implementation between the desktop and start screen version of the browser.

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