Latest Technology News

Microsoft on Tuesday announced the RTM of SQL Server 2012, the latest version of the company's widely-used relational database server platform, which will launch to the general market on April first.

The trend in SQL Server this time around is "Big Data," the enterprise buzzword that seems to be gradually encroaching on the cachet of "cloud." In short, Microsoft is positioning SQL Server 2012 as the way businesses can take advantage of the unfathomably large amounts of data created every year --1.8 zettabytes of information (aka 1.8 trillion gigs,) for example, was created in 2011 alone.

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LulzSec is gone now following the ratting out of its top members by the group's apparent leader, Hector Xavier Monsegur, aka "Sabu". Charges were filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, charging four members with two counts of conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

Those charged on Tuesday include Ryan Ackroyd aka "Kayla" and Jake Davis aka "Topiary" of London; Darren Martyn aka "pwnsauce" and Donncha O’Cearrbhail aka "palladium" of Ireland. A fifth, Jeremy Hammond aka "Anarchaos" of Chicago was also charged, but in connection with the Stratfor hack that occurred last December. He was arraigned separately of the rest of LulzSec.

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The joke is on LulzSec this morning following the arrests of three top members of the group, and charges filed against two more. The action follows the cooperation of its leader, Hector Xavier Monsegur, aka "Sabu", who has reportedly worked with authorities since his arrest last June.

Monsegur plead guilty to 12 hacking-related charges in August. Although details of his arraignment have yet to be made public, the charges against four of the five are now available online.

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eBay's payment processing subsidiary PayPal is no longer relegated to online purchases and auctions. Mobile payment app Tabbedout on Tuesday announced it now includes PayPal as an option to let users pay their bar tab or restaurant bill if they happen to be in Austin, Texas. And in just three days, a lot of people are going to be happening through Austin for the SXSW Interactive, Film, and Music Festival.

The Tabbedout mobile application is available for free on Android and iOS, and it lets bar and restaurant patrons open, view and pay their tab with their credit card on a smartphone. By doing this, the idea is that servers can more quickly and easily collect payment without actually having to process cards, come back for tips, and so forth. Within the app, the tab is kept, a tip calculator is included, and credit card data is stored locally and password protected. The system, of course, only works if a restaurant or bar has partnered with Tabbedout, and the startup has about 400 partnerships thus far.

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When you need to capture what is on your screen, the chances are you reach for the Print Screen key on your keyboard to copy a shot of the desktop to the clipboard. This image can then be pasted into an image editor, tweaked in whatever ways you deem necessary and then used as required. For many people this is enough, but anything beyond capturing an entire desktop or program window involves some degree of work.

With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft seemingly recognized that more and more Windows users were finding a need to capture desktop images and included the Snipping Tools to help make things a little easier. While somewhat more advanced than simply hitting Print Screen, if you spend any amount of time capturing what you see on your desktop, you really need to use a dedicated tool, and this is where Snagit 11 could be of assistance.

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I don't dislike Metro, as indicated in my Windows 8 Consumer Preview review. That doesn't mean everyone will, or even should embrace the new user interface. Early reception to Metro is mixed. I think Windows 8 has great potential and may be a market success, but Microsoft should listen to those people complaining about the "reimagined" UI.

Microsoft should pull back from its Metro frenzy and take a more commonsense look at how real users do things. There needs to be better intergration between Metro and the desktop motif. Rather than view the desktop simply as a legacy environment and put all their "eggs" in the Metro "basket", Microsoft should give more priority to the "old way" and to better integrating the two UI motifs so they flow as one. Windows 8 is one operating system, not two.

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The popularity of Facebook shows no signs of abating, and after annoying a large percentage of its users with the forced introduction of the timeline, the social network has released a Windows app to help irate visitors fall back in love with the site.

Facebook Messenger for Windows is a standalone app that provides access to your online friends ready for chatting and keeps you up to date with everything that is happening with your Facebook account without the need to visit the site itself.

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Adobe has released version 4 of its photo cataloguing and editing tool Photoshop Lightroom. This high-end tool, aimed at photography professionals and enthusiasts, debuts with new basic video-editing capabilities and more photo-editing controls, among other improvements.

Photoshop Lightroom 4 also costs 50-percent less for new users: $149 for new users, and $99 for upgraders, compared to $299 and $99, respectively, for version 3. A 30-day trial is available for download for Windows and Mac users.

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Today, Parallels updated its Mac virtualization client to support installation of Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Parallels Desktop 7 also supports OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" Developer Preview. Microsoft released its test OS last week and Apple last month. Mountain Lion is expected to release in late summer and Windows 8 a month or so later.

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac also offers a utility for downloading, as well as installing, Windows 8 CP. The virtualization software released in September, followed by several feature-enhancing updates, including support for new operating systems.

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Google's new privacy policy pulls together usage data from all of its different services: YouTube, Gmail, Docs, etc. and uses it to create a more clear picture of its users. If you have the "Web History" feature of Google Search turned on, Google can collect information about your browsing activity, including pages you visit and searches on Google, information about your search results including personal results, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language and more unique identifiers.

"Web History uses the information from your web history or other information you provide us to improve your Google experience across many of our products, such as by improving the quality of your search results and providing recommendations," Google's Privacy FAQ says.

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Considering how important it is, backing up in Windows is never as simple as it should be. Until now. Genie Timeline Home 2.1 reduces the backup process to just three steps: pick your backup drive, choose what to backup and then set your backup options. It comes with disaster recovery options, so you’ll never be left without your data and is constantly working quietly in the background ensuring your backup is fully up to date.

All of this powerful and useful technology could one day save you in all kinds of different ways: hundreds of dollars in data recovery fees, your job or even your marriage (imagine telling your better half what happened to those priceless photos when your hard drive crashed). That’s got to be worth something, right?

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Microsoft's silent Nokia takeover, which started with last year's Windows Phone agreement, is starting to pick up momentum. This afternoon Nokia emailed that Ovi Share will close up, effective the last day of May; I signed up for the service three years ago (gasp, or was it longer).

It's just one of the many Ovi services headed for that great graveyard in the cloud, as Windows Live replaces each and every one. Well, that is until Microsoft officially rebrands Live services some time before Windows 8 launches.

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Cocoon has provided us with a set of Grid-It organizers to review, and giveaway to a couple of BetaNews readers. We’ve got a larger and smaller one than the one reviewed here to give away. You simply need to share this story on Facebook or Twitter (hashtag #betanews).

The Grid-It organizer product isn’t entirely new, but I first saw them in some pre-Consumer Electronics Show promotional materials. They certainly struck a chord as I was preparing to travel to Las Vegas at the time. After seeing Grid-It at the conference, the gear organizer certainly looked like it could live up to the expectations they had set.

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Lots of people are talking about Windows 8's new Metro UI, following last week's release of the Consumer Preview. Metro has a great deal of potential, but compared to the desktop motif it still needs some tweaking before many Windows users will appreciate it.

Like many other enthusiasts or developers, I downloaded Windows 8 Consumer Preview last week. I have the luxury of running the operating system on a tablet, opening up the full range of capabilities.

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In the United States, unemployment and the scarcity of new jobs is continually a hot-button issue, especially now in the Presidential primary season. But job creation is a topic of special importance all over the world and residents of countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Canada, Ireland, and Singapore are all doing far more searches on "job creation" than U.S. residents.

So is a global shift to the cloud a good thing for job creation? Market intelligence company IDC on Monday released the results of a four-year, Microsoft-commisssioned study (.pdf here,) that says it is. The study predicts the number of jobs that will be created by a widespread shift to cloud computing, and where those jobs will be created.

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