Latest Technology News

It used to be that there were numerous chat clients to choose from -- the likes of AIM, MSN and Yahoo! -- but nowadays there are also social networks to consider. Trillian has always been a great tool for anyone who wants to keep in touch with friends that are using different chat networks, and support for this likes of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and more has been added as the app has developed over time.

This latest update not only fixes a number of known problems, but also improves the app’s support for Twitter. The Twitter engine has received an overhaul so there is now support for native retweeting as well as the userstream.

Continue reading →

Applications that need to be running all the time, servers, say, often install themselves as Windows services, and one reason for that is there’s a flexible recovery mechanism that will kick in if the program fails. You can have Windows try to restart the service, launch some other program, even reboot the PC in an effort to get everything working again.

Ordinary programs have nothing similar, of course, but that’s where Restarter comes in. If an application simply must be running all the time, then tell Restarter, and if the program fails or is accidentally closed then it’ll automatically relaunch it for you.

Continue reading →

Project management software-as-a-service LiquidPlanner on Monday launched its first Android app after offering an application on iOS for more than two years.

"Internally we are jumping up and down about this latest release because it’s been such a long time coming," said Liz Pearce, LiquidPlanner's VP of sales and marketing. "We were so glad to finally get a chance to work on this because we are truly committed to making LiquidPlanner work for mobile."

Continue reading →

For Apple, the past week was about post-PC devices and apps; now comes Mac software. Today Safari 5.1.4 released, and despite the very small x.x.1 version number increase, there is a massive improvement in JavaScript performance to look forward to, as well as the usual plethora of bug fixes and general tweaks.

Any claims about performance increases for software are usually open to interpretation and individual user experiences will differ from one machine to another. However, Apple claims that users running a reasonably specified system should be able to reap the benefits of up to an 11 percent improvement in JavaScript performance. This can do a lot to improve the responsiveness of websites, but there are also a number of other improvements included in the browser.

Continue reading →

Today, Gartner made a bold prediction about changing computing eras, claiming that the cloud will replace the PC as the "center of users' digital lives" by 2014. Welcome to the cloud-connected device era.

The implications are staggering, if Gartner is right, and keep in mind the firm's core customers are enterprises not consumers -- hence the audience for this staggering prediction, which isn't so unbelievable. Computing and informational relevance has been shifting away from the PC to cloud-connected devices for nearly a decade. I started earnestly talking and writing about it in 2005, when still an analyst at Jupiter Research. Like other trends, this one started slowly and now accelerates quickly.

Continue reading →

There are a ton of companies jockeying to become the "Dropbox of the enterprise world," with a managed solution for cloud file sharing, storage, collaboration, and backup with cross-platform mobile compatibility.

Monday, file sharing and collaboration solutions company Accellion Inc launched its own take on this popular niche with Kitedrive, which it bills, predictably, as "Dropbox for the Enterprise." The cloud file sync service first saw the light of day about four months ago, at the tail end of 2011, and it is now integrated with Accellion's mobile file sharing solutions.

Continue reading →

Security firm Bitdefender has launched Safebox, a new cloud-based backup, sync and share solution. Safebox, which is currently available for Windows and Android, with an iOS version in the pipeline, offers users 2GB free online storage space, with the option to upgrade to 30GB and 60GB packages.

Like competing products, Safebox allows users to back up selected folders to the cloud where they’re encrypted for storage, synchronizing with other devices and sharing with selected users.

Continue reading →

European Union antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia says that the Competition Commission is open to a settlement with publishers in the increasingly high-profile ebook price fixing case, but only if the companies address key regulatory issues. Almunia says regulators are coordinating with the Justice Department, which is also investigating the industry.

Apple's activities are still central to the investigation, with Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster's deals with the Cupertino, Calif. company being questioned. Like the US Justice Department investigation, Apple's efforts to restrict how ebooks are sold to competitors is a key issue.

Continue reading →

If you want Apple's third-generation tablet, retail is the only option short of waiting. Apple Store Online now lists shipping date as two to three weeks. Pre-orders started March 7, with the new iPad coming to stores in 10 countries this Friday. Did you miss out?

For the majority of you, not at all. Last week I asked BetaNews readers "Will you buy the new iPad?" As of this morning, 54.56 percent had answered "No". That is from a small sample size, just 482 responses, which is atypical for buying polls and low compared to the story's pageviews. To me that says: So many of you are so uninterested in the new iPad, you couldn't be bothered to respond.

Continue reading →

If you’re looking for a free partitioning tool then there’s no shortage of competition around, but you need to choose carefully. And this is particularly true if you’re considering free versions of commercial products, which often include annoying restrictions and limitations in an effort to persuade you to upgrade.

With this in mind, then, we were initially suspicious of Aomei Technology’s latest Partition Assistant Home Edition. It would probably have a restrictive licensing agreement, yes? Demand registration before you can use it? Have a host of functions which won’t work until you buy?

Continue reading →

When you need to distribute a set of files then it can often be useful to give them all the same timestamp. In part this makes sure you’re not inadvertently giving away information (maybe you don’t want people to know that a group of files in some new project was actually grabbed from something you did years earlier, for instance). But it’s also neater, and makes it easier to identify the file later. If you need to know which version of a document someone has, say, then just being given its date, which is very simple to find, may be enough.

Windows doesn’t provide an easy way to modify timestamps itself, unfortunately, but there are plenty of free utilities around to fill the gap. And if you need a portable tool to carry out this kind of task then NewFileTime could be ideal.

Continue reading →

If you can’t wait for Mozilla to officially unveil the next stable version of its web browser, the good news is that you can download Firefox 11 FINAL now. One again, minor changes and additions are the order of the day with this new release: add-ons can now be synchronized via Firefox Sync, while those migrating from Google Chrome will find limited support for importing bookmarks and other settings from the browser.

Developers will also be pleased to see additional tools added to the raft of new features introduced in Firefox 9, including a CSS Style Inspector and Tilt (3D) view for the Page Inspector, while Firefox 11 Mobile for Android, finally gains Flash support on Android 2.3 and earlier.

Continue reading →

Keeping your hard drives in order is a complex task that can often require an entire library of tools and utilities. Or, alternatively, you could just install Paragon Software’s Hard Disk Manager 12 Suite, which the company claims will provide everything you need to protect, maintain and manage your drives in a single application.

And an initial glance at the program’s lengthy feature list suggests they may have a point: there are partitioning tools, multiple backup options, copying and system migration tools, a defrag utility, secure wiping tool and a bootable disaster recovery disc.

Continue reading →

Last week, Apple lowered the price of iPad 2 16GB WiFi by $100 to $399 and the 3G model to $529. The move follows a pattern established for iPhone; during this release cycle 3GS is free and 4 is $99.

My question: Is $399 iPad 2 cheap enough for you? Cheap refers to price, not quality, although you're welcome to debate the latter in comments.

Continue reading →

Apple dominated news the second week of March, but, not to be outdone, Microsoft released a couple of interesting tools that are well worth a look. Microsoft Research Cliplets 1.0.1 32-bit is a quite unique program that can be used to create something very impressive from your video clips. In short you can select a short video file and choose an area that should be played as normal while the remainder is montionless. You can come up with some very eye-catching results, and if you’re using a 64-bit version of Windows you should take a look at Microsoft Research Cliplets 1.0.1 64-bit.

You may have taken the plunge and installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Microsoft Device Center Beta 32-bit is available to help you to take full advantage of the Windows 8 specific features of Microsoft keyboards and mice. Again, if you are using a 64-bit version of Windows, there is a version for you in the form of Microsoft Device Center Beta 64-bit.

Continue reading →