Latest Technology News

Endlessly revisiting a particular website as you wait for updates has to be one of the more tedious ways to spend your time online. And so, if you really want to know when your favorite sites have something new to offer, it’s generally a better idea to look for news on their Twitter account or RSS feed.

If your target sites don’t have either, though, you might benefit from WebMon, a tiny, free Windows tool that checks the webpages you specify and lets you know whenever they’ve been changed.

In December 2011, I asserted: "Google Nexus tablet in six months is a year too late". The search and information giant proved me wrong. After failing to quickly respond to iPad and leaving Android leaderless, Google has recovered with a bang-up Nexus device strategy. Damn, this is my second tablet mea culpa -- the first about iPad nearly 18 months ago.

Tomorrow, Google expands the number of available Nexus screens to three, all running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean: 4.7-inch smartphone that replaces Galaxy Nexus as flagship; 7-inch tablet updated with more storage for purchase price and new 3G model added; 10.1-inch slate with higher screen resolution than iPad 4. The devices are "pure Google" and produced by LG, ASUS and Samsung, respectively. The original Nexus 7 released in July, receiving rave reviews and generating, ASUS asserts, about 1 million sales per month.

Microsoft's premier VoIP, chat, and video call software Skype has received updates across the board for the new generation of Windows products. Monday, Microsoft released a new preview build of Skype for Windows Phone 8, following up on the app's announcement two weeks ago.

The new preview build includes all of the basic Skype functionality: free Skype-to-Skype voice calls over 3G and Wi-Fi, group instant messaging, free video calls to other Skype Users, and outbound Skype dialing.

Caveat from Microsoft: “Some capabilities listed…are work-in-progress and may not function consistently. This includes, but is not limited to: call reliability and the ability to receive incoming calls and chat notifications when outside of the app.”

Detroit-based social calendar app startup UpTo quietly launched in Google Play, slipping slightly under the public radar onto the Android Platform.

The application was designed to pull information from user calendars and present it in a way that is useful to shaping plans. That means it begins at the present and looks forward at what's coming up, rather than at what's already happened. It's sort of like Plancast, but less focused on events and more focused on individuals and groups.

Just when everyone (including me) thought Google and Samsung offered the killer price on Chromebook, along comes Acer. Starting tomorrow, from Google Play and major retailers, Acer's newest Chromebook goes on sale for a cool $199. That's right, 50 bucks less than Samsung's no-brainer "I got to buy it" bargain-basement model. Why not just give it away? In the esteemed words of Crazy Eddie: These "prices are insane!"

But low cost brings hidden costs, and the Acer C7 Chromebook is full of compromise for $50 dollars savings. For starters, it's a heftier beast, both in size and weight, coming in about a half pound heavier (1.4 kilograms). The newest Samsung comes with super-fast ARM Cortex A15 processor, while the Acer is Intel Celeron. In a big departure from all previous Chromebooks, the C7 swaps SSD for a standard hard drive. That means more capacity (320GB), but more moving parts and presumably greater performance overhead. I got to ask: Who needs all that storage on a device primarily running Web apps? The clincher: 3.5 hours battery life, compared to the ARM model's 6.5 hours.

Microsoft has certainly been busy on both the consumer and enterprise sides of its business. Consumers now have access to Windows 8 and Surface tablets, while IT folks are still digesting all of the news from the recent Build Conference. The company, however, continues to press forward and today it kicked off yet another IT-centric show -- this time it's the SharePoint 2012 Conference, which is underway in Las Vegas.

Ironically, despite the "2012" part of the name, the conference actually surrounds SharePoint 2013. Microsoft claims this latest version will add significant improvements to "social, cloud and mobile capabilities". Those are some big claims, so what are we truly looking at here?

The custom recovery plays an important role in Android modding by allowing users to install new ROMs or to perform full device backups. But finding and installing the right one can be a problem, which is where RecoverX comes into play. It comes with an impressive list of supported devices.

RecoverX offers a step-by-step guided process in order to install a custom recovery. The program only requires the brand and name of the Android smartphone or tablet, and it will display a list of available options. On a Google Galaxy Nexus, RecoverX can install ClockworkMod Recovery or ClockworkMod Touch Recovery, but depending on the device Amon-Ra Recovery and/or xRecovery is available.

Symantec asked hundreds of its experts for their thoughts and opinions on what the biggest security threats will be next year -- assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse on December 21, of course -- and boiled down the results into five predictions.

The first threat to make the list is cyber-conflict, which Symantec sees becoming the norm. "Conflicts between nations, organizations, and individuals will play a key role in the cyber world", it says, envisioning a lot of sabre rattling, and countries and hacktivist groups using cyber-tactics to make a point and "send a message".

Monday, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) launched what it claims is the first smartphone-based ticketing system for commuter rail in the United States. Riders of four different MBTA commuter lines can buy tickets in the MBTA mTicket app for Android and iOS, and ticket collectors aboard the trains can scan the barcode displayed on the user's screen.

MBTA's claims of being the first in the USA with this technology are a bit overstated. In July, Amtrak launched eTicketing on all of its train lines, which allows users to purchase tickets and have their phone scanned to check in. The difference here is that MBTA's is app-based and includes ticket sales inside the app, which Amtrak doesn't have. Other regional transit systems are testing such things as pay-by NFC, but these are currently only small deployments.

Tomorrow Google will launch Android 4.2 on the Nexus 4, 7 and 10 with nifty new features such as notification panel quick settings. With similar functionality the latter can now be experienced on older versions of the popular operating system through Control Panel for Android.

Instead of adding another button in the notification panel or popping up after a two-finger swipe, Control Panel for Android delivers quick settings rather differently. The app is pinned in the notification panel and quick settings is triggered with a single tap on it. But the number of available toggles makes up for the quirky triggering method. Using Control Panel for Android users can control Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, sound, brightness, auto-rotation, screen stay or haptic feedback among other features.

It would be an understatement to call the past year a wild ride for Kim Dotcom, founder of MegaUpload, but the New Zealand entrepreneur has not slowed down. Dotcom is preparing his latest website, MEGA, after losing control of his former site. He originally secured the me.ga URL using the Gabon top level domain, but then lost it recently when the Gabon government announced they would not host the new site. Still undeterred, Dotcom has taken to Twitter to blame the United States government for pressuring Gabon. He also talked there of plans to continue to pursue his new website.

Earlier today, Dotcom once again logged into his Twitter account, this time to announce that MEGA has found a new home -- "New Zealand will be the home of our new website: http://Mega.co.nz  - Powered by legality and protected by the law."

Swiss furniture maker Micasa Lab designs some weird and wacky products. Cocoon 1, for example, is a customizable bubble -- a clear sphere with stackable plastic modules that let you relax, cook, and even wash up afterwards. But my favorite of its designs is the iRock -- a rocking chair that charges iPads.

It works, as you’d expect, by converting the rocking motion into energy, and as you’d probably also expect, it’s no match for just plugging your device into a mains charger. But if rocking’s how you roll, it will give your Apple device a little extra boost while you sit out on your porch reflecting on life (or playing Angry Birds Star Wars).

Late last month, eBay, the dominant auction site, took away from users the ability to search auction listings with wildcard keywords, which can be very useful to buyers looking for very specific part numbers or product series. It is (or rather was) easy to store wildcard searches on eBay as a powerful way of drilling down through millions of items as they are listed. No more. And eBay’s reason for eliminating wildcard searches? “Our research showed that using specific terms to expand one’s search was a more effective method than wildcard searches, which oftentimes included unexpected variations that cluttered search results. By removing the wildcard (*) advanced search functionality, we’re able to deliver search results more efficiently and faster".

Yeah, right. Yes, it probably is more accurate to list individually all possible permutations of a search term, but if they can be replaced nearly as well with a single asterisk, why make users do it the hard way?

The waiting is nearly over. RIM announced today that during an event to be held on January 30, BlackBerry 10 will debut alongside two new smartphones. The operating system can't come soon enough. RIM literally bleeds market share across the planet to Androids and iPhones.

New OS features include BlackBerry Balance, Flow, Hub and Keyboard, which are optimized for the use of gestures. Balance targets corporate environments by separating work and personal data with transition between the two made using gestures. Flow eases navigation between open apps, while Hub acts as notification center for calendar events, feeds, messages and notifications.

Malwarebytes Corporation has made available the first public beta of a new Anti-Rootkit tool, which aims to provide a quick and easy way to detect and remove the stealthy malware from your PC. And as you’d expect from Malwarebytes, the program seems very straightforward and simple to use.

The beta is portable, of course, so there’s no installation required. Unzip the download, run MBAR.EXE and it’s ready to go immediately.