Latest Technology News

The US smartphone market has become so consistent -- Android gains, iPhone is stagnant -- that Nielsen has started revealing other interesting trends, as it did today. First, for the fanboys: Android share among US subscribers 13 or older was 43 percent at the end of third quarter, up from 39 percent at the end of June. Meanwhile, iPhone is top-selling smartphone, but iOS share is stuck at 28 percent, following a trend fairly consistent since mid 2010.

Each fan group has some number to wave around: Android as top-selling smartphone OS (and continually gaining) and iPhone leading handset in its class. To fan the fanboy fires, I should point out that iOS could finally get some pick up from new US iPhone carriers C Spire Wireless and Sprint. However, some of the hottest Android phones either shipped or will ship this quarter, including 4G LTE packing Motorola Droid Razr and Galaxy Nexus on Verizon and HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket on AT&T. iPhone 4S lacks LTE.

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Time is definitely money when it comes to providing support in a medium to large enterprise. Auslogics OnCluster ensures that downtimes, slow PCs and frustrated employees calling the support desk are kept to the bare minimum by providing easy to supply centralized maintenance and real time support.

Auslogics OnCluster is based upon the company’s very successful range of home maintenance and support products that help automate common tasks like finding and removing registry and hard drive errors and defragmenting them both.

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Apple’s iTunes may not be everyone’s favorite music player or media management tool, but for millions of iPod, iPad and iPhone owners it is the software they use to work with their music collection. We have all experienced problems with MP3s to one degree or another -- a library littered with duplicate tracks, albums that have no ID3 tags, tracks with misspelt name to name but a few -- and this is something that Real Networks’ Rinse can help with.

This is an Adobe Air application that can be used to analyze and fix your music library, comparing the information attached to your files with an extensive online database. If you are the sort of person who likes to remain in control of what is happening with your computer, you may want to work through your music collection one track at a time, confirming any suggested changes that Rinse comes up with.

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I have been using Windows 8 Developer Preview (32-bit build) for more than a month now, and must say that I am impressed. The first thing I did was test my own software to see how well Windows 8 supports programs that can run on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. So far the tests look good, and I only found one thing that did not work correctly (didn't handle a layered window properly).

I played with some of the supplied Metro applications, and they are quite interesting. At first, Metro totally confused me -- and I am a programmer! For example, you can't terminate a Metro application like you can a desktop application. Coming from the desktop experience, Metro may confuse some users. That said, I need to get some more information about Metro and how it works. Whether you are a programmer or not, I strongly recommend watching the Microsoft Build video about creating (and using) Metro applications, which you can find here.

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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution called the Wireless Tax Fairness Act of 2011 late Tuesday, which seeks to put a five-year moratorium on new wireless taxes; including those placed on consumer services and property, and also those placed on providers.

The resolution, unsurprisingly, sprung from the heart of the U.S. high tech world, Silicon Valley. The bill's co-sponsor is Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic representative for the 16th district of California, an area which includes the City of San Jose, and Santa Clara County. The bill's Republican sponsor is Trent Franks, of the sixth district of Arizona.

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To keep up with the shifting tide of video game distribution and the increasing popularity of mobile tablets and smartphones as video game systems, brick-and-mortar video game retailer GameStop was said to be working on an "Android-based gaming platform."

Now, the retailer has begun its push by offering the 7" Acer Iconia Tab A100, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer in bundles that come with a special Bluetooth game controller, the Kongregate Arcade app, digital subscription to GameStop's Game Informer magazine, and a handful of exclusive games.

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Here's a story that will make you think twice about what you share on Facebook. Researchers with the University of British Columbia's NetSysLab let loose what are called "socialbots" on Facebook, and came away with 250 gigabytes of personally identifiable data. The results of the study show that Facebook users need to be much more cognizant of exactly what they share, and who they add as friends.

A socialbot is a bot that comes in the form of a faked user profile. The bot friend requests users on the site, and then once the requests are accepted, it downloads the personal information on the profile. NetSysLab researchers report a success rate of up to 80 percent in tricking Facebook users into adding the fake profiles and making matters worse, Facebook's protective measures did little to detect or prevent the researcher's infiltration.

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I'm feeling kind of cranky today and having bad flashbacks to the 1990s, when the honking PC bought one day seemed oh-so last year weeks later. On October 2, I bought the Galaxy S II from AT&T. Problem: On November 6, the carrier will launch its first two LTE phones -- and service in four new markets -- the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. I so want the Skyrocket. It's an investment for the future, because of LTE. But AT&T probably won't let me have it, because the new S2 releases a couple days outside the 30-day return period for the older model. Not hopeful, I will nevertheless try.

What about you? Would you buy either phone, and would the main reason be LTE -- that is, if an AT&T subscriber? Verizon's LTE rollout already is farther along and reaches many more people, and the carrier offers six LTE phones (seven with the forthcoming Droid Razr) and two tablets. Have you bought a Verizon LTE phone, with faster data being a reason? Please answer in comments below.

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The consumerization of IT isn't just taking place in the private sector. Consumer mobile devices are moving uncharacteristically quickly through public sector regulations to be used in government and military as well, and the Department of Defense is now on board with Android.

This week, Dell announced its Mobile Security for Android platform has been certified for use within the U.S. Department of Defense by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

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Just like many other iPhone 4S users, I am experiencing poor battery life that has left me running for the charger far more than I would like to. The issues are a black eye on what has been an otherwise stellar experience with Apple's latest smartphone.

Although I never owned the iPhone 4, I am told by those who have used both that there is a definite decrease in battery performance. We should have known, though -- in the slides of the keynote introducing the 4S, astute observers noted the standby time advertised by Apple (200 hours) was a full 100 hours less than its predecessor.

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GFI Software today unveiled the latest editions of the company’s security products, VIPRE Antivirus 2012 and VIPRE Internet Security 2012.

And while much of the competition tries to win you over by adding ever more malware-hunting features, GFI takes a different tack, concentrating just on the basics, but making them as simple to use as possible.

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As we revealed just over a week ago, NitroPDF was readying the release of Nitro Pro 7, its commercial tool for creating, editing, annotating and sharing PDFs. Nitro Pro’s feature set rivals that of Adobe Acrobat, but is available for a significantly lower price -- just $80 for a limited period at launch.

Now, as planned, Nitro Pro 7  is now officially available for download in both 32-bit and 64-bit trial versions for PCs running Windows 7, Vista or XP.

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Postbox 3.0 has been released for both Windows and Mac users. This commercial mail client is aimed at those who rely heavily on email and who find the various free email tools, such as Thunderbird or the clients supplied by OS X and earlier versions of Windows too restrictive.

Postbox 3.0’s headline new feature concerns tighter integration with numerous third-party apps and services, including Gmail, Dropbox and a range of popular social networks. It also includes handful of interface tweaks designed to take better advantage of new features in Windows and OS X, plus throws in a handful of minor new improvements.

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Plex, Inc has announced the release of version 0.9.5 of its freeware cross-platform media browsing suite. Now split into two distinct programs, Plex Media Server and Plex Media Center, as well as a mobile app for Android and iOS, Plex 0.9.5 introduces a number of new features as well as major changes behind the scenes.

One key new feature -- the creation of a myPlex account -- aims to make accessing your media content remotely over the internet a simpler task, while PC users can now access their media collections via the first Windows build of Plex Media Center.

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After years of promises and demos both from Samsung and a host of other companies, the flexible screen is set to finally become a reality in 2012. Samsung confirmed plans during its quarterly conference call.

"The flexible display, we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012", company spokesperson Robert Yi says. The company aims to introduce the first flexible screen device in the early part of the year. He adds that it would "probably start from the handset side".

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