Latest Technology News

Finnish security vendor F-Secure has released the 2012 editions of its flagship antivirus package and security suite. As updates go, it’s relatively minor, with most of the changes being beneath the surface. Still, there are some worthwhile improvements on offer.

F-Secure says it has upgraded the behavior monitoring, scanning performance and malware removal capabilities in this edition, for instance. Improved automation in the handling of malware samples means F-Secure’s cloud-based protection network can offer an even faster response to the latest security threats.

Continue reading →

A new version of Android will be available in November, initally on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone. Much of the analysis of this Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android is focused on the implications of it running on both smartphones and tablets, where older versions of Android ran on one or the other (1), as well as shiny new gimmicks such as face recognition to unlock a handset.

This unification of smartphones and tablets is a red herring. Other things matter much more for Android. Android tablets are failing in the market, while Google’s smartphones sell in enormous numbers. This is a major issue for Google.

Continue reading →

To accompany the new stable version of the Chrome browser Tuesday, Google updated its Chrome App Store Apps with a new look and new interface.

The new App Store is marked by big images for the featured apps and extensions, that users need only to hover over to reveal a short review, user rating, and "add to Chrome" button. A left-hand navigation panel contains the store's search feature, and lists of popular apps and extensions, collections, and categories.

Individual pages for apps and extensions have been updated as well with a tabbed interface that breaks the app up into Overview, details, and reviews. The reviews interface now links to a user's real identity with their Google+ profile.

Continue reading →

iPhone 4S users on Sprint's network have flooded the carrier's support forums with complaints of slow data speeds, leading some to consider returning the device before Friday to avoid the $350 early termination fee.

Complaints appeared on support forums on October 14, the day the iPhone 4S launched at retail. Tests indicate that in some cases data throughput was as slow as .25Mbps -- only a little faster than a 2400 baud modem. The issue also seems mostly limited to the 4S itself: other Sprint phones tested side-by-side are unaffected although scattered reports of bandwidth issues are appearing elsewhere.

Continue reading →

Tenth in a series. Microsoft launched Windows XP on Oct. 25, 2001. By every measure it is the most successful Windows version ever, bringing stability to the platform, too.

Anyone can easily dismiss Windows XP, because it's so overly familiar, having stayed long in market and so seemingly unchanged. But Microsoft accomplished much around the venerable operating system, which quickly became a stable platform for the company, too. In fact, change defined XP during its first half-decade in market, but built on the stable platform beneath. Within three weeks of the launch, Microsoft announced the Tablet PC version and Media Center Edition, then codename "Freestyle", in January 2002.

Continue reading →

DVD rental and streaming video provider Netflix has posted its third quarter 2011 earnings, and though the company's revenues are higher than they were last year, decreasing subscriber acquisition and increasing costs of content licensing will have a significant impact on the company's bottom line next year.

If we were to go strictly by Netflix's earnings data, it would look like the company is continuing to do well: $822 million in revenue (49% higher than 2010,) $62 million in net income (63% higher than 2010,) and earnings per share exceeded Wall Street expectations by more than 20%.

Continue reading →

It’s hard to believe that WinZip, the stalwart archive program, has reached its sixteenth release with the latest update, which picks up a range of new features. The ZIP format is getting pretty elderly now and other more efficient compression standards have overtaken it, but it’s still a popular choice. WinZip 16 adds a few more carrots to tempt users by making full use of today’s 64-bit processors and adding the ability to zip directly to Blu-ray disc amongst other new features.

Also new is the ability to avoid email size limits and send files of up to 2GB directly. There’s no need to worry about the limits set by your email provider as the program integrates fully with ZipSend, a web based delivery service that stores your file and shares a direct download link with your email contact. All this is done seamlessly so there’s no need to interrupt your work and switch to a different program. It’s also possible to share Zip files on Facebook directly from the WinZip window.

Continue reading →

Resizing multiple images manually is a tedious business. You must open an image, choose the resize option, configure it appropriately, save the image, close it, then start all over again. While there are plenty of batch image resizing tools around, they also require at least some significant configuration before you can get started.

Picture Resizer, though, takes a very different approach, which can at least let you carry out simple resizing operations without ever seeing a single dialog.

Continue reading →

Ninth in a series. Few products have impacted more people than Windows XP. Microsoft officially launched the operating system -- the first for consumers based on the NT kernel -- on Oct. 25, 2001. That's right, 10 years ago today. But PC manufacturers started offering XP systems in early September 2001, a week before terrorist attacks against New York City and Northern Virginia. XP is the most popular Windows version ever released. Even today, depending on the analyst crunching numbers, more people use Windows XP than any other PC operating system (although Windows 7 is nearly tied).

Windows XP is a workhorse. Microsoft kept it in market longer than any other Windows version, allowing a very stable ecosystem of third-party applications and products to evolve around it. The operating system fulfilled the vision set for Windows 95 six years earlier -- release of stable, 32-bit code suitable for businesses and consumers. Microsoft's biggest development challenge: Providing compatibility with games and supporting hardware drivers that wanted access to the kernel, which NT blocked for security reasons.

Continue reading →

Facing increasing competitive pressure, Apple silently pushed performance enhancements to the MacBook Pro line of laptops. The changes include better processors and additional storage, and on higher-end models better graphics cards.

The base level 13-inch MacBook Pro now sports a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processor with a 500GB hard drive, but remains at $1,199. The faster $1,499 13-inch model now includes a 2.8GHz i7 dual-core CPU with a 750GB HDD.

Continue reading →

Texas PC maker Dell on Monday took the wraps off of the newest in its 18-year old line of XPS laptops, the 13-inch XPS 14z. Like it has done with all the products in its "Z-series," Dell is billing the 14z as the thinnest fully-featured laptop in its size class.

It falls in line as the higher-end cousin to the Inspiron 14z that Dell released just shy of two months ago, and smaller counterpart to the XPS 15z that was released earlier this year.

Continue reading →

Think Portable Document Format, and you might be forgiven for thinking it’s a closed standard that requires you to install software from Adobe to both create and view PDFs. You’d be missing a trick if you did restrict yourself to Adobe software though, because there are many other PDF tools out there equally as capable, often cheaper and sometimes offer unique features of their own.

Take Nitro PDF Professional, for example. About to be released in its seventh major incarnation, the rebranded Nitro Pro offers professionals all the tools they need for creating, editing and collaborating on PDFs for a significantly smaller outlay than Adobe’s own Acrobat range. With prices starting from $99 -- a saving of $200 over Adobe Acrobat Standard -- you’d be crazy not to take a closer look.

Continue reading →

Virtual environments on a Mac are often used for running alternative operating systems like Windows or Linux. Most often this is to run software that simply won’t work under OS X no matter how hard you try to persuade it.

Sometimes, however, it’s desirable to run a Mac inside a Mac, which is where free Paragon Virtualization Manager for Mac OS X comes in. This may be handy for testing new software in an isolated environment to avoid damaging your Mac or you might want to clone your system to a removable disk for backup purposes.

Continue reading →

But you knew that already, right?

Today, DisplaySearch issued the most unusual of tablet forecasts -- one that looks at the totality of the market and takes Windows into consideration. Gartner and IDC use a separate "media tablet" category for Android tablets and iPad, based on the operating system, choosing to classify "Tablet PCs" running Windows as personal computers. DisplaySearch has more sensibly made the designation around processors -- ARM and x86 -- which better defines the market for the future, and isn't the future what a forecast is all about?

Continue reading →

Leading enterprise IT company Oracle announced on Monday that it will be acquiring cloud customer service company RightNow for approximately $1.5 billion.

Since CRM is a major aspect of Oracle's business, RightNow's cloud-based customer experience suite, RightNow CX will make an attractive addition to Oracle's cloud CRM platforms. RightNow CX is already used by almost 2,000 companies internationally, by companies such as NASA, eHarmony, Yahoo, Reuters, Overstock, The U.S. Army, and Nikon to name just a few.

Continue reading →