Latest Technology News

Samsung's new promo for next week's big mobile event is a real snoozer. It's nothing like those cheesy videos mocking iPhone users for being wannabe hipsters, who have such no lives they'll wait hours on end to buy a phone that looks exactly like the one owned now. Instead of chutzpah, galaxies pass before your eyes. Get it? New Galaxy device launch. Wake me, I fell asleep.

But wait for it. There's a pretty good punchline, if you can bear through the video's first 48 seconds. Be sure that if an iPhone user, Samsung means the dig for you.

It's amazing what you can do with Windows 8. In this video demo I show how you can convert your Windows 8 tablet into a mobile multimedia set-top box for your TV. You could also turn your tablet into a game console, if you want.

I use an Acer W500 tablet -- running Windows 8 Consumer Preview, of course -- plugged into the TV, without additional power (that's good for about four hours battery life). In this configuration, the Windows tablet is like a mobile set-top box.

Adobe took the wraps off Creative Suite 6 on Monday, introducing the largest release to date of the content-creation platform. CS6 now includes up to 12 programs and two companion applications, Bridge and Encore, and is available in four editions: Design Standard, Design and Web Premium, Production Premium, and Master Collection.

The CS6 beta is one of the most successful in the company's history, with one million downloads over the past month of availability alone, a record for Adobe. The move was slightly unusual considering the company typically does not offer large-scale betas of its products.

If your PC gets attacked by some previously discovered specimen of malware then it’s relatively easy to spot. Your antivirus package will scan the new file on access, realize there’s a match for something in its virus database, and the threat will be quarantined immediately, before any real damage can be done.

If you’re attacked by some brand new specimen, though, it’s a very different story. Every antivirus package claims it can also detect new threats by behavior alone, but this is vastly more difficult: there’s a good chance that it’ll be missed. And so if you think your system might have been compromised, then it’s a good idea to get a little third-party scanning help from the free Mandiant Redline.

If you can't beat them, manage them. It's a strategy that has worked well for Microsoft in the past, and it is emerging as a key element in announcements last week about how Microsoft will license Windows 8 in all its variations, including the x86 consumer, Professional and Enterprise editions, the embedded Windows RT and the cloud-based Windows Intune.

While Microsoft's primary goal is to stop Apple's growth in the enterprise, which it will do by tilting licensing policies in favor of Windows tablets, the company has a Plan B that will help monetize Apple and Android devices in the enterprise through management.

Windows PC makers will start unveiling their first 2013 models from today. They are all desktops built around the maiden Ivy Bridge processors out of the chute, which Intel announced late this morning. Ivy Bridge is the working name for Intel’s 2013 models.

Intel decision-makers chafe whenever I refer to their processor generations as model years. In fact, executives throughout the PC ecosystem universally hate the term. They’d better all start embracing it, though. Because they’ll need to adopt a model-year mentality if they want to ensure continuing growth.

Poor technology purchasing happens when a company buys products that do not properly meet their requirements. It happens with things like enterprise software and cloud services, and sometimes even with things like datacenters, hardware and phone systems. It happens more often than you realize but you don’t hear much about it. People love to talk about their purchasing successes, but they are far more reluctant to talk about their purchasing failures.

The infrequent nature of these types of purchases is the root cause of the problem. While employees may have deep system experience, they are often not up to date with competing products in the market simply because these types of purchases happen so seldom. This can lead to a gap between what the selected product delivers and what the business requires. When this gap gets too large, you have a technology purchasing failure.

Leading web retailer Amazon.com on Monday launched the beta of AmazonSupply, a new site dealing in tools, materials, machinery, office equipment, and supplies for business, industry, and commerce.

AmazonSupply launches with approximately 500,000 different items, which are separated into fourteen different classes: Lab & Scientific, Test, Measure & Inspect, Occupational Health & Safety, Janitorial & Sanitation, Office, Fleet & Vehicle Maintenance, Power & Hand Tools, Cutting Tools, Abrasives & Finishing, Material Handling, Materials, Hydraulics Pneumatics & Plumbing, Fasteners, and Power Transmission.

Mozilla has released new final versions of Firefox 12 and Thunderbird 12, its open source browser and email messaging tools. Neither update, despite the new version number, contains much in the way of exciting new features, but developments on future builds suggest version 13 could be a landmark release for both.

Firefox 12 introduces one notable change for Windows users -- the advent of silent updates with no User Account Control dialog getting in the way, while Thunderbird 12’s headline new feature is the ability to view message extracts in global search results.

As April's end approaches, there is much software to thrill over. During the past week, the number of exciting releases covered seemingly every category imaginable. Whether you want to keep your computer running smoothly or have photos you want to edit, there’s something here for everyone.

Hard drive maintenance is an essential part of computer ownership and TweakNow HD-Analyzer 1.0 is a handy tool that can be used to free up disk space by identifying large files and folders. Once you have deleted unnecessary files, O&O Defrag 15.5 32-bit is on hand to help you to keep your hard drive defragmented, including remote computers on your network. There is also a 64-bit version of the program available, O&O Defrag 15.5 64-bit.

Sometime ago, I pledged to wait on reading the Harry Potter series until it came out as ebooks. I was ready and willing for October's planned debut on Google Books, but that was cancelled last minute. What happened instead mindboggles. In late March, author JK Rowling opened the Pottermore Shop to sell the ebooks directly -- in formats for most any device and with no onerous digital rights management. Let me emphasize that last bit: no DRM.

I've meant to opine since buying the Harry Potter ebooks as a set -- and affordably priced at that -- when Pottermore Shop opened 25 days ago. The universal distribution approach, fair pricing and DRM-freeness set apart the most successful fiction series in history from most every other popular literature available today in digital formats. Rowling's ebooks mark a watershed moment in digital publishing that could eventually lead to the end of onerous DRM. Remember, music started that way, but mostly is DRM-free today.

Let me repeat that a little more verbosely. Watch for Windows Phone to grab a serious hunk of market share at the end of 2012. No doubt about it. "Huh?" you ask. Believe it.

The Feibus-is-crazy club most assuredly is enjoying a surge in membership right about now. And why not? There is certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that Windows Phone thus far has underwhelmed.

As if there isn't problem enough, with Apple giving Mac users a false sense of security. Now security software vendors do it, too. Earlier in the week, Symantec reported that the number of Flashback-infected Macs had fallen to 140,000 -- that's from as many as 700,000 by Kaspersky Lab's reckoning. But yesterday, Dr. Web put the number at 500,000, leading Symantec to acknowledge low reporting of actual infections.

The revelation -- and it most certainly is -- comes more than a week after Apple released a security update designed to remove the Flashback Trojan, which also is called Flashfake. Half-a-million compromised Macs, tied together as a botnet, is the tipping point for Apple computers. Apple and its security software partners must rally quick, to kill this beast before it bursts the fragile dike protecting the Mac user community from the tsunamis that occasionally wash across the Windows world. This the turning point, where OS X joins Windows as a platform aggressively targeted by cybercriminals.

Why is it so hard to get developers to realize the software they design is slow, bloated and does not have the "fast and fluid" experience we all would like? End users may not appreciate this about many programmers and their mindset, but many developers don't like to use old computers? They love their technology and demand leading-edge PCs.

Maybe it's time to take away their computers, and send  them to Walmart to buy new ones.

This week, marketing research firm Ipsos published the latest edition of the Ipsos Reid’s Mobil-ology focusing on Canada's mobile device market. According to the data (collected for six months between August 2011 and January 2012), the Canadian mobile device market has shown continuous growth across the smartphone, tablet, and e-reader categories, putting it very close to the United States despite different brand preferences among consumers.

Here's a blow-by-blow look at how the Canadian device market differs from the United States according to Ipsos Reid's data.