PC film

DLNA media server Serviio 1.0 debuts

London-based Petr Nejedly has released the first stable version of his DLNA media server app for Windows, Mac and Linux. Serviio 1.0 exits beta by introducing both free and Pro versions, with all functionality present during the beta testing kept free as promised by the author.

Serviio 1.0, which can be installed on Linux-based NAS drives as well as PC and Mac, allows users to stream video, music and photos from the host device to any other DLNA-ready device, including Smart TVs, mobile devices and other computers.

By Nick Peers -
Musical Notes

Tomahawk makes music more social

If you are a music fan, you’ll undoubtedly have an extensive collection of MP3s and other music files on your hard drive. It is also likely that you listen to music on Spotify and Sound Cloud, and perhaps watch the occasional music video on YouTube. Tomahawk is a music player that enables you to access all of this and more in one handy application but there is a social focus to the player that opens up some interesting options.

Software that broadcasts information about the music you are listening to is nothing new, but this is a feature that you will find in Tomahawk. The program will scour your hard drives for music files and create a library for you. As you listen to your collection, Tomahawk enables you to view artist information and discover related artists that you may be interested in. This is all well and good, but it is the social aspect of Tomahawk that is especially interesting.

stethoscope keyboard

Is someone messing with your PC? KeyCounter can tell you

When was your PC being used yesterday? Whether you want to fill in a time sheet, or you think someone’s accessing your system without permission and would like to know for sure, it could be very interesting to find out.

And KeyCounter is very lightweight tool which could help you to reveal all.

By Mike Williams -
Netflix streaming

Summer doldrums hit Netflix, stocks plummet

Users love Netflix, it's something of a cultural phenomenon in America. But slow subscriber growth in the United States, high content acquisition costs, and the high overall cost of rapid global expansion have kept the company from net profitability in the most recent quarters.

Tuesday evening, the company released its second quarter earnings, which triggered a massive 25 percent drop in stock value based upon the appearance that Netflix wasn't performing up to expectations. At the closing bell Wednesday, Netflix stock hovered at $60.28

By Tim Conneally -
white iPhone 4S

iPhone sales are slowing, deal with it

Apple shares closed down 4.32 percent today, keeping with a trend started during after-hours trading yesterday. The real question: Could matters have been much worse, if not for the big carrot that came with the little stick? Apple missed fiscal Q3 Wall Street analyst consensus for revenue and income, but announced a big dividend and promise of more to follow. Performance was by no means bad, just not as good as forecast and the dividend, $2.65 per share, is something for shareholders to smile about.

But behind the magic, I have to ask: Is Apple distracting shareholders and Wall Street analysts, making them look over there so they miss the trick going on over here? It's a question I can't answer but can only speculate about. Another quarter of results will reveal much. One thing is certain now: iPhone sales are slowing. There's no if about it, but why. Are people waiting for the new model or are Android rivals like Samsung pulling away more buyers?

By Joe Wilcox -
executive lawyer boardroom

A 7-inch tablet from Apple would just create more lawsuits


Apple is one of the most important companies in the world of consumer technology and one that has changed the destiny of the smartphone and the tablet. It came as a big surprise when the Cupertino, California-based company announced the iPad more than two years ago. In 2010, Apple made waves with its first tablet generating $9.566 billion in revenue from the iPad alone, and in 2012 it's making headlines again with a smaller, seven inch tablet it hasn’t even announced yet.

In 2010 Apple had the market all to itself, with the iPad dominating 83 percent of the tablet market. Why? The iPad wasn't designed to have the most cutting edge software or hardware in terms of features or speed, but it was conceived to offer easy-to-use software with hardware to match it, wrapped in a good looking package. It sold 14.789 million units in 2010 alone, so it's clear the idea caught on. The original iPad was released in a time when tablets weren't as popular as they are today, and despite previous efforts by Microsoft with the TabletPC, they never caught up. So what's changed?

By Mihăiță Bamburic -
Mountain Lion Notification Center

Why should I, a Windows user, care about Mountain Lion anyway?

As it has been widely reported today, Apple released its latest desktop operating system, OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) to the public. The operating system costs just $20 to download through the Mac app store, and is available to all current Mac users running OS X 10.6 or higher.

But you are a Windows user with no intention of switching over to Mac OS. If you bought a Mac you'd, probably boot Windows on it. You really have no place for Mountain Lion in your heart or mind, so what could anyone possibly say about it that would make you nod your head in agreement that a feature is cool or signifies one trend or another?

By Tim Conneally -
music headphones laptop

ON AIR Skypes music details as you listen

Most people are keen to share their unquestionably excellent musical taste with everyone they know, and what better way to go about it than through a chat client. ON AIR is a plugin for Skype that enables you to share details of the music you are currently listening to by having your Skype status message automatically changed whenever a new track plays.

As well as track information, your Skype status can also be customized through the use of text, links and emotions. The plugin includes an extensive history section that keeps a record of all of the tracks you have been listening to.

security malware trojan map world

Malware infects three-quarters of the world's top banks

File this story in the "Who do you trust with your money?" category.

Eighteen of the top 24 banks in the world have malware problems, security firm Lookingglass says on Wednesday. Even three-year old worms that have long had patches and fixes to address them continue to infect the PCs of banks, including Conficker, found (gasp) in the IT deployments of 10 of the top 24.

By Ed Oswald -
DJ Shadow Promo

BitTorrent: Entertainment's future is free, and includes RealPlayer

How do you monetize a technology that is hard to monetize? BitTorrent, the company behind all things torrent and the uTorrent client has several answers for that. Not long ago it began to offer the uTorrent Plus client that added features like antivirus protection, a build-in media player or a media converter for a price to the uTorrent program.

But that did not really solve the question that artists and other members of the entertainment industry were asking: how are they going to monetize their content using BitTorrent?

By Martin Brinkmann -
London Eye Olympic Games

Free Wi-Fi comes to London in time for the Olympics

Virgin Media has already introduced free Wi-Fi to selected Underground stations -- with more to be added by the end of the year -- and now O2 is doing its bit to transform London into Europe’s largest free Wi-Fi zone with a roll out of hotspots at numerous landmarks across the city.

Free to access and use, irrespective of what network you’re on, the hotspots are already available at Oxford Street, Regent Street, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and Parliament Square, with Covent Garden to be added soon. The first time you connect you’ll need to register your details, but after that you’ll be automatically connected whenever you get within range of a signal. Assuming, of course, that O2 doesn't suffer another network disruption like the one it experienced recently.

By Wayne Williams -
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MDP Tablet

Qualcomm unleashes the fastest (and most expensive) Android tablet yet

NVidia, Samsung, you can keep your Tegra 3 and Exynos. There’s a new champion in the Android world of tablets.

There are people that only settle for the best products, so if you’re after the fastest tablet running Android you’re in luck: Qualcomm has the answer for you with the Snapdragon S4 Pro Mobile Development Platform (MDP) tablet. So how fast it is? Let’s just say that there is no Exynos or Tegra 3 that can keep up with this "evil" creation from Qualcomm.

By Mihăiță Bamburic -
BlackBerry 10

Research in Motion isn't in a 'death spiral'

The conjured term "death spiral" has been so overused in discussions about Blackberry-maker Research in Motion that one must ask: Are the tech pundits crying wolf too often, too soon? Do a targeted search for "Research in Motion death" on Google and you will easily see that this rush to judgement started all the way back in early 2010. Like the doomsday naysayers of yesteryear, RIM's date of decease has anything but solidified (to some pundits' shock.)

The short-term future for RIM is a rocky road indeed. With its face-saving Blackberry 10 OS release being pushed back another quarter into early 2013, the smartphone giant has little glitz to match the other big boys temporarily. Samsung's instant-hit -- aka the Galaxy S3 -- has already touched down. Google's got its latest iteration of Android, Jelly Bean, cooking for its flagship devices including the Nexus and the S3. And the iPhone 5 rumor mill just can't take a week off as of late.

By Derrick Wlodarz -
math calculations ledger

OpalCalc can make anyone, even you, a math whiz

If you’re not comfortable with math then most scientific calculators will seem a little intimidating, packed as they are with complex functions which you’ll rarely, if ever use.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. OpalCalc is a very powerful calculator with some near spreadsheet-like functionality, yet it’s also presented in a way that makes it very accessible to even the most math-phobic of potential users.

By Mike Williams -
girl laptop headphones notebook music video

RipTunes converts YouTube videos to MP3s

YouTube is a great source of music videos and with the large number of privately filmed videos it is a great resource for tracking down live performances by your favorite band or artist. When you are at your computer, there is nothing to stop you from visiting YouTube whenever you want so you can listen to your favorite songs whenever you want, but RipTunes is a free utility that enables you to convert videos into MP3 files that you can add to your offline music library. It's legit software, too, unlike scammers' video-to-mp3 converter security researcher Cameron Camp wrote about earlier today.

In many regards this is not out of the ordinary, but the way things have been implemented here make RipTunes more than worthy of mentioning. The app itself can be used to search YouTube without the need to visit the site itself, and as you search for artists and bands, you can start a musically tour of discovery as related or similar artists are suggested to you.

By Nick Peers -
Load More Articles