Latest Technology News

Now there's a headline I never expected to write, particularly following "Android is unstoppable" nine months ago. But in the United States, at least, iPhone has nearly matched pace with Androids. Looks like the Apple apologists will get their day. After years of wrongly boasting iPhone's leadership over Androids, they might yet be right.

For the three months ending in February, 48 percent of Americans who recently bought a smartphone, chose Android -- 43 percent iPhone, according to Nielsen. Those numbers are up considerably for both, but iPhone surged to close the gap, following the release of the 4S in October. A year ago, 27 percent of new acquirers chose Android versus 10 percent for iPhone.

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Shares of Red Hat rose 17 percent to $60.12 in heavy midday trading. Yesterday, after the bell, the company reported $1.13 billion revenues for fiscal 2012, ended February 29. Red Hat is the first open-source based company to post $1 billion in revenues

Quite a feat for a platform Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once called a "cancer" and has repeatedly questioned the security of. One has to wonder if Ballmer might be reconsidering the parnership Microsoft penned with Red Hat back in February 2009.

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Over two years in the making, Google's Go project on Wednesday hit its 1.0 version milestone release, this is the first time the general-purpose programming environment has been made available in supported binaries on Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS, and Windows.

This release defines both the specification of the Go language and the specification of a set of its core APIs, and implements them in the form of two compiler suites, and the core libraries themselves.

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Smart Projects has updated its shareware data recovery tool, ISOBuster, to version 3.0. Previously limited to examining and recovering data from optical discs such as DVD, CD and Blu-ray, ISOBuster 3.0 now extends support to a wide array of disk formats, including hard disks, memory cards, USB thumb drives and even Zip, Jaz and floppy disks, adding support for the NTFS filing system at the same time.

Past versions of ISOBuster were renowned for being able to recover data from corrupt and even physically damaged optical discs, and the functionality will be similar for newly supported drive and file system formats too.

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Whether you’re concerned that files you have stored on a USB drive might be recovered by someone else after they have been deleted, or you are selling your computer and want to ensure that none of your personal documents can be accessed, almost everyone has a need to securely delete data at some point. Simply deleting files is not enough as there are all manner of tool in existence that can be used to restore them, but Disk Wipe is a free, easy to use app that helps to ensure that when a drive is formatted, none of its data is recoverable.

It is not just hard drives that the app can be used to secure. If you have stored private documents on a USB drive or have photos or other files stored on a memory card, the same app can be used to completely format any FAT, FAT32 or NTFS drive that can be accessed from within Windows. In addition to the secure file wiping, Disk Wipe also provides you with a good deal of information about the drives it detects, such as the number of sectors, the manufacturer and serial number.

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Are you 35 and claiming to be 29? Don't post photos to Facebook. Today Face.com added a new attribute to its facial-detection API: age detection. The startup claims the new attribute will let developers create apps that use three criteria -- minimum, maximum and estimated age -- to determine how old people are in photos.

While the technology surely will appeal to social networkers, the big boon could be marketers looking to maximize exposure to select demographic groups, such as 18-24 year olds. Developers can set the attribute to look for specific age segments, hence the marketing potential. But there are others, such as detecting fake IDs at establishments serving alcoholic beverages. Additionally, Face.com claims to have improved facial recognition by 30 percent in this release of the API.

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Opera Software on Wednesday released the latest version of its compact Opera Mini browser for Android devices, which was heretofore available only as an Opera Next advance build.

Opera Mini 7 for Android features improved hardware acceleration for faster and smoother performance, and features the ability to set up the homescreen with an unlimited number of Speed Dial buttons.

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Properly understanding what’s happening on your PC -- monitoring hardware, assessing performance, diagnosing errors -- normally requires you to navigate a host of Control Panel applets and third-party tools. But if you’re tired of such hassles, then there is an easier way: install AIDA64 Extreme Edition 1.85 and you’ll get a whole library of PC management and information tools in a single, easy-to-use package.

Need to know more about your PC devices, for instance? AIDA64 provides detailed reports on your motherboard, BIOS, RAM, hard drive, sound card, network adapters, PCI and USB-connected devices, their resource use and more, so you can get a feel for your system setup without having to open the case.

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Google Chrome 18 has just landed as a stable release, and while it has the usual mix of minor tweaks and security fixes, the real news is its graphics improvements.

Part of this comes from the browser enabling GPU-accelerated rendering for 2D Canvas content, which could bring a real performance boost to canvas-based animations and games. (Or that’s the plan, anyway. If you have any issues, or just want to find out what’s happening on your system, then entering chrome://gpu will give you more information on the browser’s current GPU acceleration usage.)

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Google isn't waiting for the install base of Android users to move to Ice Cream Sandwich, not that carriers or handset manufacturers help much (if you're waiting for that upgrade from Gingerbread, you know what I mean). Today the search and information giant updated Google Maps for Android to version 6.5, packing in capabilities specific to version 4.x. Don't you feel cheated? I would.

Google offers the best to a minority of users, and small is too big a word to describe them. According to Google's official stats, as of March 5, Ice Cream Sandwich accounts for a mere 1.6 percent of Android devices. But, hey, many of these users are the bleeding edge of influencers Google should want to reach -- and keep enthusiastic.

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Proving that head-mounted displays aren't just PC peripherals, Japanese electronics company Epson on Wednesday launched the Moverio BT-100, the first self-contained, Android-powered head-mounted display.

The $699.99 unit include stereoscopic .52-inch (960×540) TFT LCD displays that create a perceived 80-inch display, which is powered by Android 2.2 touch navigation. Since you can't touch the actual screen without jabbing yourself in the eyeball, all touch interface activity is done through a handheld touch pad.

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Today's big Samsung Galaxy Note announcement -- 5 million shipped in five months -- has me wondering "Who?" Is it you?

It's a big number for an over-sized smartphone, under-sized tablet measuring 146.85 x 82.95 x 9.65 mm, weighing 178 grams and packing beastly 5.29-inch display. On Dec. 29, 2011, Samsung announced shipment of 1 million Galaxy Notes. Just weeks ago Samsung put shipments at 2 million. That's a helluva jump in just three weeks.

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Today, cloud-storage provider Box updated its iPad and iPhone app to include support for the newly-launched Box OneCloud. The service is Box.com’s pitch to the enterprise and business market for the “post-PC era”, providing users with a means of using their iPad to directly edit documents that can be stored online, collaborated on and shared with other users as well as accessed via desktop.

Box for iPhone and iPad 2.7.1 is a free-for-personal use app that allows users to access the contents of their Box accounts via their iOS device. The app also allows users to upload files back to the service as well as edit them using supported apps on the mobile.

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Pack my bags, I'm moving to Dubai.

Local shop Red Tomato Pizza promises to make available a fridge magnet that you tap to place orders. For all I know, it's all gimmick. The promotional YouTube video is a smart production. Spoiler: You will want to order pizza after watching it.

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This week, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that they have isolated 95 MHz of "prime" wireless spectrum that could be repurposed for mobile broadband uses.

The 1755–1850 MHz band was examined by NTIA as potentially viable for commercial wireless broadband services (.pdf here.) Currently, more than 20 federal agencies own more than 3,100 individual frequency assignments in this band. Their uses range from law enforcement surveillance, to military tactical communications, to unmanned aerial vehicles, to guided munitions.

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