Latest Technology News

Well, I must agree with the jury in the Apple-Samsung patent trial, after seeing the shocking look-a-likes the South Korean electronics giant announced yesterday during IFA Berlin. Have you seen these Apple rip-offs? Samsung simply is shameless in its copying.

For example, there's a new phone with large screen and stylus, as well as another with big zoom lens. The audacity of Samsung to take features from iPhone or iPad and offer them on its devices. The company just thumbs its nose -- or whatever gesture they use on the Asian peninsula -- at the American jury and US District Judge Lucy Koh.

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Is it possible to still be an early adopter and only start using Linux full-time now?

Linux is the supreme software conquest for me, and one particular distribution has tormented my early adopter "lifestyle" -- Red Hat Linux. It's now long gone, abandoned by parent company Red Hat, though it was given a new lease on life through Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

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At IFA in Berlin, Germany yesterday, Samsung officially took the wraps off of its new Windows-powered slate PCs, the Series 5 and Series 7, which, like Samsung's Android tablets, incorporate a lot of modifications directly from the South Korean consumer electronics leader.

The Samsung Series 7 Slate is configured with an Intel Core i5 processor and 4 GB of RAM, with a 128GB SSD and has a suggested retail price of $1,199.

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Amazon Appstore, the retail giant's marketplace for Android applications, has finally opened for business in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, a whopping 17 months after it first launched in the US.

Jim Adkins, vice president of Amazon Appstore, says of the marketplace’s overseas expansion: "Customers in the US have purchased millions of apps, games, in-app items and subscriptions since the store launched last year, and we’ve received great feedback about discovery features like Free App of the Day. We evaluate and test games and apps before making them available in the Appstore so we ensure customers have a great experience with the games and apps they purchase. Amazon has spent years developing innovative features that help customers find and discover the products that are right for them and have applied that know-how to the Amazon Appstore. We’re delighted to extend that experience to our European customers".

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Laplink Software has released PCmover Free, a cut-down version its migration tool for transferring applications, settings and data from one PC to another.

And if you’ve used a commercial build of PCmover before, then this new release will seem very familiar. It’s essentially a simple wizard that walks you through every bit of the migration process, from choosing what you’d like to transfer, to collecting and packaging that data, to moving it to the new system.

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Samsung made a string of new product announcements at IFA in Berlin, including of course the much anticipated Galaxy Note II. But just when we thought we knew everything the South Korean company had in store for us, it surprised the gathered watchers by unveiling the ATIV S, the first handset to run Microsoft’s new mobile operating system.

The ATIV (VITA - "Life" in Latin - backwards) is the first in a whole range of Samsung products based on Microsoft’s software, and boasts a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and 4.8in (121.9mm) HD Super AMOLED display. It also has an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and 1.9MP-megapixel front-facing camera, making it competitive, but not ground-breaking. The smartphone will be for sale at some point between October and November, in time for Christmas.

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If your digital photo collection is something of a mess then there are thousands of programs that promise they can restore order. And so, like us, you probably don’t see an urgent need for any more.

Snaps is a genuinely interesting photo manager and viewer, though, that offers a little more than some of the more identikit competition. And while the program has some problems, in part because it’s still very young (it’s currently at version 0.3.9), there’s already enough functionality to be useful and it shows plenty of promise for the future.

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In about six weeks, the InterWebs will flood with posts commemorating a tech visionary's passing. Steve Jobs died on Oct. 5, 2011. A year ago last week, he stepped down as Apple's CEO. Jobs is a colorful, iconic, flawed figure, who stands before us something more than mere mortal. That's because his public life has a literary quality that cuts to the core of our humanity.

I got to thinking more about this today following a discussion with colleague Tim Conneally and questions answered for a CNN reporter about Microsoft (apologies to him, I removed those sentences and use them here). I asked Tim today: "Why is Steve Jobs so endearing? Redemption. What's that term in fiction about the hero's journey? Steve Jobs followed the path in real life". There's something Shakespearean, too -- the fatal flaw that humbles greatness. Mixed together, his story should be a great fictional work. But it's better and haunting being real life.

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If you loved the original Galaxy Note, you're going to love this even more -- Samsung's new Galaxy Note II, which was announced at IFA in Germany today. It is packing even more processing power than the mighty Samsung Galaxy S III and it brings some beans along with it...

The Samsung Galaxy Note II will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and Samsung's TouchWiz UX out of the box. A 5.5-inch 720p Super AMOLED display sporting a 1280x720 resolution dominates the front of the new smartphone. It is packing a 1.6 GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM. It comes with a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera while on the back there is an 8 megapixel camera with LED flash. Bluetooth 4.0, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, MHL and NFC take care of connectivity with A-GPS and Glonass support added as well. The usual array of sensors including an accelerometer and digital compass are included along with a 3,100mAh battery that powers the device. It comes in 16/32/64GB versions while a microSD card slot will accommodate up to 64GB of additional storage.

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At IFA in Berlin, Germany on Wednesday, Sony Mobile Communications debuted its second generation Android-powered Tablet S, which Sony has now merged with its Xperia smartphone brand.

Sony's first generation of Android-based tablets offered extremely different designs from the whole crowd of first generation Android tablets, yet despite their unique appearance, they entered the market with a "thud" rather than a "boom." The wedge-shaped Tablet S was introduced at the same time as the much more interesting Tablet P, but the two devices entered the US market six months apart.

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Gone are the days when setting up and using Linux was a cumbersome experience, and what better way to see than trying Ubuntu -- one of the most popular and easiest-to-use distributions available. Ubuntu has tempted many Windows users to make the switch to open-source, free-to use-software.

One of the easiest methods to test Ubuntu is to install it on VMware Workstation. You get all the benefits of having Ubuntu installed but none of the hassles attributed to the process, because it's all happening in a safe virtual environment.

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The recent release of Firefox 15 FINAL means the whole developmental cycle has moved on again with Mozilla’s web browser, and as expected versions 16 (Beta), 17 (Aurora) and 18 (Nightly/UX) have made their first appearances.

Sadly, there’s not an awful lot to get excited about in these new releases, but a handful of new features are worthy of attention. It seems to confirm what Mozilla developer Martin Best said on the release of Firefox 15, namely that Mozilla’s focus for the rest of 2012 will shift more to the Android and Firefox OS builds.

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I have followed the development process of Microsoft's upcoming operating system closely, ever since first tidbits of information leaked on the Internet. But instead of just reading about it, I also installed all public versions of Windows 8 on one of my desktop PCs to get a first-hand experience of what the OS is all about.

Like many of my fellow BetaNews authors, I was torn apart by the operating system. Chris Williams, for instance, believes that Windows 8 is pointless for the Enterprise while Mihaita Bamburic imagines what Metro could have been. It becomes even more apparent when you read Windows 8 will be the new Vista and Windows 8 deserves a chance.

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With effective antivirus software installed, you can protect yourself against a range of online threats such as viruses, spyware and other malware. But there are some forms of malicious software that manage to evade detection by even the newest and completely updated protection tools. In this situation, you may feel as though there is nothing left to do but to format your hard drive and start from scratch, but Norton Power Eraser 3.1 and Norton Bootable Recovery Tool 5.1, both updated yesterday, prove otherwise.

You may have noticed popup windows that you do not seem to be able to eliminate, but there could be countless other symptoms indicating that something is wrong with your computer. But before you reach for the installation disc for Windows, grab yourself a copy of the latest version of Norton Power Eraser, which can be used to scour your hard drive for instances of malware that may not otherwise be detected.

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Setting up a local installation of WordPress on your own PC can be a convenient way to test themes and plugins, but it’s not the simplest of tasks. Along with WordPress itself you’ll need to install and configure PHP, a server, database and more.

Sounds too much like hard work? Then you might prefer Instant WordPress, which provides everything you need and requires no complex configuration at all.

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