Latest Technology News

If you install many apps and programs in Windows 8, you may notice that the system's Metro interface gets cluttered with shortcuts sooner or later. And while you can sort the shortcuts into groups to make everything manageable, it too is not an optimal solution.

When you switch to the All Apps screen of the Metro UI, for instance by right-clicking and selecting the All Apps option from the bottom toolbar that appears, or with the shortcut Ctrl-Tab, you may come to the conclusion that this interface is more suited for your needs.

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Google on Wednesday afternoon made a huge announcement for its near field communications (NFC)-powered Google Wallet platform. Beginning August first, with an update to the Google Wallet app, Android phone users with supported NFC devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, HTC One X, or Fujistu Arrows, will be able to use any credit card from Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover as an NFC payment solution. These credit cards can be used at one of the 200,000 MasterCard PayPass-supported retail locations across the United States.

Not only does the update support the full assortment of major U.S. credit card companies, but it also moves the encrypted secure bit for credit card authentication off the phone, and into the cloud on Google's servers. Previously, the wallet ID (virtual card number) was stored in a secure encrypted storage area of the Android phone. This could corrupt the wallet on the phone if software updates were performed, or firmware was updated without clearing the wallet data first. But now with the new permissions being passed down from the cloud, there is an added level of security. That new level of security is the ability to remotely disable your mobile wallet app if your phone is stolen.

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That's the question I repeatedly asked while attending San Diego Comic-Con, which wrapped up about two weeks ago. Ian Lewis' "Let’s not blindly give every latest tech marketing prophet his profit", posted here Sunday afternoon, has me thinking about phone as camera again, in context of what's good enough.

A year ago, I took to Comic-Con the Fuji X100 to shoot photos and Sony HDR-TG1 camcorder for videos. I processed and uploaded content on a Mac laptop. But July 2012, I was a month into an Apple boycott over patent bullying. I still have the devices but now use the Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook. It's plenty good enough for processing photos using cloud services to edit, but I wasn't too sure about videos and decided not even to bother. During Google I/O I shot video on Galaxy Nexus, uploading directly to YouTube. That worked out just fine.

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If you’re looking for a faster way to access your Windows applications then you could pin the appropriate shortcuts to your taskbar, but that gets cluttered fairly easily. And while the Start menu offers more customization options, it’s also more bulky, and about to disappear in Windows 8 anyway.

Still, no problem, Gomigo is a more lightweight launcher that could be just what you need.

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Santa Clara County Superior Court on Wednesday ruled that Oracle is contractually obligated to port its software products to HP's servers that utilize the Intel Itanium platform, despite Oracle's move to drop support for the 64-bit server platform in early 2011.

Intel's Itanium first began losing software support in 2009, when Red Hat announced Enterprise Linux 6 would not include the architecture, and then in Spring 2010, Microsoft announced Windows Server 2008 R2 would be the last version of the operating system to support Itanium, which was characterized as the industry's first CISC-based multithreading architecture.

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Amazon Instant Video, the little video service that could, has now moved into Apple territory. Starting August 1st, Amazon will be releasing an iOS iPad app for its Amazon Instant video service. The new app allows iPad users who are also Amazon Prime account members to access the 20,000+ title collection of videos available to them.

The new iPad app also allows viewing of Amazing Instant Videos not in the "free" Amazon Prime video section as well. The Amazon Instant Video App for iPad also offers access to "Your Watchlist," a list of all the movies and TV episodes Amazon members want to watch in the future, regardless of if they own the video or not. Also, the app provides access to a "Your Video Library" feature that gives iPad customers access to their previous purchases and rentals from Amazon Instant Video. Another nice feature is the option to either watch over a Wi-Fi connection or download the video for offline viewing mode.

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Is your business cloud-ready? More importantly, are you using the cloud to mobilize your business? Mobile connectivity has become crucial to businesses, and in many cases a necessity. While on the road, it's important for your employees to have access to their email, mission-critical business applications, and the Web itself.

A recent study by research firm SMB Group showed that small-and-medium businesses are looking to mobilize, not only increase productivity but save money. Forty-four percent of all respondents said the ability to work from the field was a driving force in their mobile business strategy, while one-quarter say the ability to make decisions faster was a key factor.

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Let me preface this article by saying I’m a long time Gmail fan. I signed up as soon as an invite came my way, and have used it as my primary email service ever since. Although I now have an Outlook address, and really like what Microsoft has done with its Hotmail replacement so far, I can’t see switching over to it full time. I’m too attached to Gmail to ever think of saying goodbye.

But, that said, I’m not as enamored with the webmail service as I used to be. There are just certain issues that prevent me from really, truly appreciating it as I have in the past. Gmail is still great, and I don’t want to appear churlish about a free service that mostly outshines the competition, but here are some problems I have with it.

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Change doesn’t happen overnight at Microsoft, but when the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation simply announced the new Outlook mail service yesterday, it was a big surprise. But surprise attacks can prove advantageous, and six hours after the Outlook team announced the service via Twitter, a million people had signed up for it.

What You Get

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Microsoft on Wednesday announced the final Windows 8 RTM build has been released to its hardware manufacturing partners, in advance of the developer release on August 15, and ahead of general consumer availability on October 26. The RTM build is the version that OEMs place on machines that ship pre-loaded with Windows.

"While we have reached our RTM milestone, no software project is ever really 'done.' We will continue to monitor and act on your real world experiences with Windows 8—we’ve used the preview process to test out our servicing and we have every intent of doing a great job on this next important phase of the product," Windows President Stephen Sinofsky said on Wednesday. "Hardware partners will continue to provide new devices and improve support for existing devices. PC makers no doubt have quite a bit in store for all of us as they begin to show off PCs specifically designed for Windows 8."

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When you create web graphics then it’s important to keep file sizes small, as that will cut page download times and reduce your bandwidth requirements. And you probably do this already by reducing an image’s pixel size, complexity, color depth and more.

But if you use PNG files then you might also want to try PNGGauntlet, which compresses files to make them more efficient. Savings can be as much as 50 percent, yet there’s no loss in image quality -- each picture should look exactly the same.

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It’s the Next Big Thing. Any vaguely IT-related person just has to say something like “computing is moving to the cloud” and everyone nods their heads wisely. And so it is with Office 2013. I’ve been using the Public preview of Office since it appeared two weeks ago, and I have to say I like it; and I also like the much more straightforward integration with Skydrive and Sharepoint. But there’s still no way I’m going to change my default habit of local saving and working to using the Cloud as my primary storage. And here’s why.

There are several aspects to this, and the first two are most revealing of the way in which people sitting in Redmond, Wash., Cupertino, Calif., or most other major corporations live in a different world from the rest of the population of this little blue planet of ours.

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Was it just yesterday that Microsoft unveiled the new Outlook, which will replace Hotmail? I ask because in just six hours, the service reached a remarkable milestone.

“One million people have signed up for a new, modern email experience at Outlook.com. Thanks!” Microsoft tweeted a quarter day after the launch.

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I was supposed to be on CNN on Monday night to comment on the Apple v. Samsung patent infringement trial that just started in San Jose, Calif., but then presidential candidate Mitt Romney insulted the Palestinians and I was bumped. The way these things work is CNN calls the day before so I have time to think up something pithy to say. The question now is what to do with all that pith? So I’m dumping it on you. Consider this the long distance view of this legal battle in the context of what it really is -- brands at war.

As a practical matter, I think it is very unlikely that Apple can win based on its accusation of “slavish copying”. We have laws based around copyright and patents for that, and if patent or copyright had been broken, this would be an easier case. I suppose there may be laws that cover “slavish copying”, but my guess is that it is something hard to prove. Even if the products look similar, the internals are likely to be quite different, as is the OS.

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The first stable release of Google Chrome 21 has hit the download servers, and the open-source, cross-platform browser has a number of new features and improvements to share. The headline new feature is that, with your permission, web apps can now directly access your webcam and microphone without requiring a plugin.

Version 21 also includes deeper Google Cloud Print integration and expanded support for gamepads. Those lucky enough to own the MacBook Pro with Retina Display will be pleased to learn the new release fully supports the higher resolution, providing smoother fonts and graphics when web browsing.

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