Latest Technology News

London’s street lighting has come a long way since the days of gas lamps (although, interesting fact there are still some 1,600 of these old lights in use), but it’s about to be brought bang up to date with the introduction of smart lighting that can be controlled by iPad-wielding engineers.

Following a successful pilot scheme, Westminster City Council has announced that it intends to convert all 14,000 of its electric street lights over the next four years.

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Instagram is known as a smartphone and tablet-only affair, but not anymore. The Facebook-owned company announced that it will roll out Instagram profiles on the web. Soon all users will have the chance to stare at filtered pictures on a larger screen.

Instagram follows the new parent company's design philosophy with web profiles. There is an uncanny resemblance to Facebook Profiles, though it is made to sport a similar look to the mobile apps that Instagram users are accustomed to. Since photo-sharing is the trademark signature, web profiles as you might expect show bio and a selection of pictures, neatly sorted based on month. Users can also follow other Instagrammers, comment and like photos, and obviously make changes to their profile straight from the browser.

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The Windows 8 Modern UI looks great at first, but start using it and you’ll soon notice a problem. No matter how large your display, there’s no longer any way to view and access more than two apps at any one time. The old ability to organize windows more or less as you like simply no longer applies in the app world.

If this feels like a step backwards to you, though, help is at hand in the shape of Toolbox for Windows 8, an interesting free app that provides 9 tools of its own, and allows you to arrange and use up to 6 of them on the screen at any one time.

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Amazon has quietly rolled out a new pricing plan for its premium membership service Amazon Prime which finally allows customers to make monthly payments instead of annual lump sum fees. That's all good right? Not so fast...

With Amazon Prime, subscribers get a lot of benefits from the popular online retailer: Free Two-Day, Standard, and no-rush Shipping, access to the Prime Instant Video streaming service, and access to the Kindle Lending Library where subscribers can freely borrow and read Kindle books as often as they like.

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Norwegian cross-platform browser Opera 12.10 has been released, promising support for more powerful extensions, the SPDY networking protocol and a number of platform-specific enhancements.

Mac users gain Retina Display support and Notification Center integration in Mountain Lion, for example, while the Windows build, also available in 64-bit, adds support for two additional touch gestures in Windows.

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Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 Pro is a pricing mystery. The Redmond, Wash.-based corporation revealed the price for the ARM-powered branded tablet, but left its more powerful counterpart --the one equipped with Windows 8 Pro-- unpriced. But recently, information on the latter surfaced on a German website.

Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 Pro was introduced to the Notebook.de "Surface tablet" lineup, and it is currently available for pre-order in two storage options. Pricing for the entry-level model that comes with 64GB of internal storage starts at EUR809 including VAT (Value Added Tax), and the version with 128GB of internal storage runs for 909EUR including VAT. The 64GB Microsoft Surface with Windows RT runs for EUR699 on the same German website.

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ISO images are a very convenient way to distribute software, but testing them is more of a hassle, especially if they’re bootable, as normally you’ll have to burn them to disc, first.

But it may not always have to be this way, particularly if you grab a copy of Qemu Simple Boot. As with just a little work the program can boot the image (ISO, IMA or IMG formats are supported) in a window on your own desktop, no disc required.

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In seven days the fourth-generation Nexus smartphone goes on sale at Google Play. The question: Will you buy? Early reviews are in (sorry, we don't have a device yet so you'll have to read elsewhere), and they're quite encouraging. Nexus 4 promises to be one of the best Android smartphones, perhaps the best period, available this holiday season. But better doesn't mean good enough for your budget, and you might be happy with current device or looking at Apple or Microsoft platforms instead.

LG makes the handset, which Google helped design. The search and information giant will sell two models with identical features but different storage capacities -- 8GB ($299) and 16GB ($349), unlocked and no contract commitment -- starting November 13. T-Mobile USA will sell a subsidized model the following day, requiring 2-year service agreement. Nexus 4 features a quad-core processor, doubles typical Android phone memory to 2GB and runs newest Jelly Bean. But unlike its predecessors, the smartphone has a fixed battery. Does that matter to you? It does to me.

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Remote desktop software maker Splashtop Inc on Tuesday announced it has made Splashtop 2 universal on the Android platform, supporting both tablets and smartphones, and offering special optimization for devices built on Qualcomm's Snapdragon systems-on-a-chip.

Splashtop 2 has been available for iPad since last June, and for Android tablets since mid-August, and the product marked a generational shift in Splashtop's business model. The original version of Splashtop was a for-pay application that let users connect to their desktop PC through their iOS or Android device as long as they were on the same local Wi-Fi network.

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AT&T has already officially told us of two new Windows Phone 8 handsets coming to their service with the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920, both of which will soon launch. Now the company has unveiled two tablets as well -- one running the new Microsoft operating system and the other Android. The company seems to be staying on the Microsoft bandwagon by adopting Windows 8 tablets and perhaps they see an opportunity to hitch their wagon to a growing platform. The mobile carrier today, not only announced it will launch the new Samsung ATIV Smart PC, but also hedged its bets with an Android tablet in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1.

Samsung has been in the news a lot recently with the Apple apology and news of their sales numbers for the Galaxy Note 2. With all of the public attention Samsung has received it seems the devices could be hits for AT&T. After all, the Apple lawsuits really provided some PR for their rival and, as the saying goes, "there is no such thing as bad publicity". Then again, price is everything and AT&T isn't doing their customers any favors here. Here are some specs and the prices AT&T will be offering, as well as their release date.

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Most Android users use the Google Play store to find and install apps for their device. But what happens when you want to install one downloaded from a third-party source, like an Android forum?

Android modders are usually faced with using a file manager such as the one from CyanogenMod 10 in order to open files that are copied from the computer in order to install them. It's not the most straightforward method, which is where APK Installer comes into play. How does it work? After adjusting a few settings it's fairly easy -- just involves drag & drop to install apps directly from the computer.

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German remote-support developer TeamViewer GmbH has publicly released the first beta of TeamViewer 8, its cross-platform, free-for-personal use remote support and control tool.

Version 8, which is currently only available for Windows and Mac, debuts alongside TeamViewer Touch for Windows 8, a dedicated full-screen app for Windows 8 users wishing to connect to other machines, while the new desktop beta comes with support for multi-touch gestures, Mac Retina displays and the ability to record both sound and video during a remote session.

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Halo 4, the latest milestone edition in Microsoft's most iconic video game franchise, launches at 12:01am on November 6.

It's been eleven years since the original Halo: Combat Evolved was released, and though there have been a couple of noteworthy titles launched recently, it's been five years since the last "numbered" Halo (Halo 3, that is) was released.

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The Firefox Developer Toolbar is a new tool that landed last month in the stable version of the web browser. It is a console that enables you to issue commands right from the page you are on, and while it has been designed with developers in mind, it makes available features that regular Firefox users can utilize as well.

The basic idea here is to use the Developer Toolbar for things that you normally handle using the menus the browser makes available or third-party tools. To display the toolbar in Firefox press Shift-F2. This opens a small toolbar at the bottom of the browser window. If you want to close it again, either use the same keyboard shortcut to do so or the close icon on the right side of the toolbar.

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The U.S. Government's Federal Emergency Management Agency, known commonly by the acronym FEMA, is cracking down on false information and rumor circulating on the internet about Hurricane Sandy and related recovery efforts.

FEMA's introduction of its Snopes-like site follows a highly publicized Twitter misinformation campaign perpetrated by a former hedge fund analyst and republican political consultant tweeting under the name @comfortablysmug.

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