Latest Technology News

Economic worries will hold back enterprise IT spending next year, Gartner predicts. The analyst firm sees tepid 2.5 percent growth to $2.679 trillion, up from projected $2.603 trillion. "The global economic outlook has deteriorated in 2012, leading to scant overall growth in enterprise IT spending", Kenneth Brant, Gartner research director, says.

But there's a glimmer of sunlight in the economic gloom. "Our third-quarter outlook points to more substantial growth in 2013, if significant fiscal crises are avoided in the US and Europe, and in subsequent years. Most enterprises have already significantly cut discretionary IT spending growth over the past several years and, barring a global economic catastrophe and significant contraction of operations, they have little room to reduce IT spending further over the long run".

Microsoft has clearly begun to focus more heavily on the cloud for both businesses and consumers. The company has integrated Skydrive into both Windows 8 and Office 2013, and even some recently announced SharePoint features included SkyDrive integration into the social and collaboration app for business. Now, today, it has rolled out two more improvements to the cloud storage service.

Along with the brand new features that were rolled out today, Microsoft's Mike Torres, Group Program Manager for SkyDrive apps, couldn't help tooting the company's own horn a bit by trumpeting that SkyDrive has doubled in usage -- "in the last 6 months, you have doubled the amount of SkyDrive storage being used." This is too vague to indicate any real numbers of storage or users so that will remain open to interpretation for now.

AOKP is one of the most popular names in the Android modding community, gathering more than 180,000 installations in the past couple of months. The team released the latest build -- Jelly Bean Milestone 1 -- two weeks ago, so let's take a look and see what all the fuss is about. Straight off the bat I have to warn that you might see some pink unicorns around. Don't worry, they don't bite unless provoked.

Before we begin I have to mention that since I installed AOKP Jelly Bean Milestone 1 (catchy name, don't you think?) Android 4.2 popped up on the horizon, which I ran shortly after. In my review of the second Jelly Bean iteration I made a number of comparisons with popular custom Android distributions, only to realize that the stock version was the least inspiring upgrade that I performed in the past couple of months. Why? I simply missed my AOKP ROM, because in so many ways it's more suited for an enthusiast like myself.

Enterprise content management application Seismic launched in the Windows 8 app store today, bringing Microsoft's new operating system its cloud-based method of managing branded marketing and sales materials in a single, touchable interface.

Seismic began its life under the name Nu:Pitch last year, and was originally a somewhat humble Powerpoint application that could pull data from Microsoft CRM Dynamics, Salesforce, and other libraries so presentations with live business intelligence could be completely portable.

Cloud-storage provider SugarSync Inc has launched SugarSync 2.0 Beta, a brand new version of its cross-platform desktop application for backing up and syncing folders between multiple computers and devices.

Version 2.0, which comes with 5GB free storage as well as paid-for plans, has been redesigned from the ground up, ostensibly to make sharing and syncing quicker and easier. It also provides direct access to the cloud storage via Windows Explorer and Finder for the first time, plus introduces a new cloud-wide search tool.

Perhaps, with all the buzz about Apple iPad mini, Google Nexus 10 and Microsoft Surface, you forgot about another important tablet launch. Amazon Kindle Fire HD WiFi is available, starting today, following two months or preorders. The LTE model comes next week. So many headline competing tablets launched since Amazon's September announcement, Kindle Fire HD could easily be overlooked. Completely forgotten? Buyers will answer that question.

Kindle Fire HD certainly looked like the iPad killer when unveiled. The 8.9-inch models nip iPad's 9.7-inches, offering much more, for much less. In-between Kindle Fire HD's announcement and availability, Apple punched out 7.9-inch iPad mini. Meanwhile Google stepped with newer Nexus 7 tablets (one with 3G) and larger Nexus 10. What distinguishes the lot are curated app and content stores. You're not just buying a tablet, or as Robert Johnson expressed in his Surface review yesterday, but an ecosystem, too. The point: No one should buy based on hardware features alone. Kindle HD and its competitors are about so much more.

Following the foray into Windows 8/RT territory, cloud storage service Box announced an overhauled app for Android devices today. Box for Android 2.0 delivers a number of new features such as document preview and offline folders on top of under-the-hood changes. But even though the name might suggest otherwise it is not limited to Eclair green droid users.

One of the most noteworthy features added to Box for Android 2.0 is document preview. Similar to other green robot competitors like Google Drive, it can render more than 75 types of files within the app without having to resort to third-party solutions. For working outside the grid, the updated Box can now also save folders in encrypted form for offline use on top of individual files. Outdated content will be reported after changes are performed.

Our own Robert Johnson might love his Microsoft Surface tablet, but HP's head of PC, Todd Bradley, isn’t quite so keen. In an interview with IDG Enterprise, Bradley dismisses Microsoft’s foray into the PC hardware market claiming he doesn’t see the new tablet as a threat.

"I'd hardly call Surface competition", he says, before going on to explain his reasons. "One, very limited distribution. It tends to be slow and a little kludgey as you use it. I just don't think it's competitive. It's expensive." He also states that consumers haven't taken to the Windows RT tablet either. "Holistically, the press has made a bigger deal out of Surface than what the world has chosen to believe. If you want to go to any of the 30 Microsoft Stores in the United States to buy one, I think you should probably do that".

Finding videos online is generally very easy. Downloading local copies can be more of a challenge, but there are some great tools around that can help -- and FSS Video Downloader is one of the best.

The program doesn’t just support YouTube, for instance. It can also download clips from Facebook. Vimeo. Myspace. Metacafe, Vimeo, LiveLeak, Dailymotion, and assorted other popular sites.

If you want to root your Android Samsung device without resorting to a custom recovery then CF-Auto-Root is the tool for you. It enables elevated privileges, while keeping things as close to stock as possible. A voided warranty is no good, so there's a tool for that, too.

The approach is similar to stock because CF-Auto-Root only installs the SuperSU binary and APK as well as the stock recovery. The first two are used to manage root access on Android, while the latter overrides any third-party recovery. Elevated privileges are basically granted after flashing the CF-Auto-Root package for the Samsung device as PDA in ODIN.

This may have been planned or it may be just a hasty way to put yesterday's security woes behind, but today Skype announced one month of free unlimited worldwide calling. Regardless of the motivation behind this offer, it's a nice gesture for those users not already paying for an account and also, perhaps, a way for Microsoft to entice future paying customers to the VOIP service.

Skype already does a lot for free account holders simply by allowing no-charge Skype-to-Skype calls, but calling a landline or wireless phone means upgrading to a paid account. Now the company offers one month of Skype-to-landline and Skype-to-wireless calls free of charge. The equivalent plan would normally set you back $13.99.

If you’ve tried an iPad mini, or just seen one, you’ll know the screen is a decent size and well suited to using like a tablet. It’s not quite so good for using as a laptop/netbook replacement (unless you have really good eyesight or like peering at things in a hunched-over manner), but that hasn’t stopped Belkin from rolling out a portable keyboard folio for it.

The Portable Keyboard Case connects to Apple’s device via Bluetooth and is a scaled down version of the keyboard the company sells for the full-sized iPad. If you’re the sort of person who likes to pretend you’re a giant, you’re going to love it.

Today the team behind the popular custom Android distribution CyanogenMod announced that the domain crisis is now contained, after previously losing control of cyanogenmod.com. But all modding affairs will now continue on the new domain cyanogenmod.org, instead of the previous digital shelter.

Apparently the problem was caused by a former member who owns cyanogenmod.com. The CM team says that he donated the domain in the early days of the project in order to support it, but recently took charge and "violated" their trust. Allegedly the former member set up deals in his personal interest under the name of the project and even impersonated Steve Kondik, the founder of CyanogenMod. The ex-member demanded $10,000 in order to restore control, which he did not receive.

If you ever help others out with their PC problems then you’ll know that network issues can be particularly troublesome. And just getting started, finding out exactly what might be connected to the system you’re looking at, can take quite some time.

Having a network scanner to hand can greatly simplify the troubleshooting process, though, by carrying out most of the low-level inventory checks on its own. And PortScan is a great example of this tool type.

Users are becoming accustomed to Adobe security flaws these days. After all the company did occupy five of the top-10 spots in the recent Kaspersky report. While the "occasional" Flash bug can be dealt with, having one's user information stolen is a whole different story, but that is exactly what sources are claiming and Adobe is confirming by shutting down the service in question.

"Adobe is currently investigating reports of a compromise of a Connectusers.com forum database. These reports first started circulating late during the day on Tuesday, November 13, 2012. At this point of our investigation, it appears that the Connectusers.com forum site was compromised by an unauthorized third party. It does not appear that any other Adobe services, including the Adobe Connect conferencing service itself, were impacted".