Latest Technology News

Mozilla has updated its email messaging client with the release of Thunderbird 11 FINAL. Version 11 introduces a slightly tweaked user interface -- tabs are now placed above the menu bar -- and promises to improve startup times and overall responsiveness.

Version 11’s lack of notable new features is disappointing, but Mozilla’s release of Earlybird 13.0a2, an early alpha version of Thunderbird, hints at more radical changes to follow.

IObit’s do-everything PC maintenance suite, Advanced SystemCare, has today been updated to version 5.2. And top of the changelog this time is the new support for Windows 8 Consumer Preview. (Whether anyone’s spending enough time using Windows 8 to require a maintenance suite is another issue, of course, but it’s still a welcome addition here.)

IObit also report optimizations and improvements in just about every SystemCare module: PC Health, Performance Monitor, Privacy Sweep, Turbo Boost, Registry Fix, Malware Removal, System Optimisation, Disk Defragment, Shortcut Fix, Disk Cleaner and Cloned Files Scanner.

Analysts love to make predictions. It's a no-risk gambit, because the forecasts are years away and nobody remembers if they're wrong. After thrice predicting that Windows Phone would beat out Apple's iOS by 2015, IDC has another for the same year: Android media tablet shipments will exceed iPad. By that reckoning, the firm predicts that Google's mobile OS will dominate the two major cloud-connected -- post-PC, if you insist -- device categories (the other being smartphones).

"As the sole vendor shipping iOS products, Apple will remain dominant in terms of worldwide vendor unit shipments", Tom Mainelli, IDC research director, says. "However, the sheer number of vendors shipping low-priced, Android-based tablets means that Google's OS will overtake Apple's in terms of worldwide market share by 2015. We expect iOS to remain the revenue market share leader through the end of our 2016 forecast period and beyond".

Since I am a full-time multi-display PC user, using a standard, single-display notebook on the road always makes me feel like I'm working with one hand tied behind my back. I've grown so accustomed to the additional screen real estate that it has become integral to my work flow.

If you look through my history here at BetaNews, you can see I've tried many of the mobile solutions designed to bring extra monitors to the mobile office…portable mini-monitors, tablet-based screen extenders, and so forth. Unfortunately, none of them have stuck.

It’s official. More than six years after its last stable release, Audacity 2.0 is now available. This open-source, cross-platform audio recording, editing and mixing tool is often bundled with audio hardware devices and has garnered a huge following since it first appeared.

Audacity 2.0 is based on the 1.3.x beta channel, which means those currently running this version of Audacity, the only version to support the latest Windows and OS X operating systems, won’t notice any differences between this and the latest beta release (1.3.14) that appeared in December.

Hot on the heels of the slightly delayed official unveiling of Firefox 11 FINAL comes Waterfox 11.0, an optimized build of the Firefox source code for Windows 64-bit users.

Waterfox 11.0 contains exactly the same updates as Firefox 11 (see below), plus one major change of its own, a switch from AMD’s Core Math Library (ACML) to the AMD LibM library, which is optimized for 64-bit processors.

Oracle today released VirtualBox 4.1.10. The build is essentially a maintenance release, but it’s wide ranging enough to make it worth installing. Assorted additions include SSL/TLS support for VirtualBox’s web service, for instance. The changelog notes “some Windows 8 adaptions” in this build, though it doesn’t tell us any more. And the Linux build gains support for X.Org Server 1.12.

Elsewhere, notable bug fixes include several that will improve system stability. A possible guest memory corruption issue has been addressed; the Linux build will now properly flush all data when closing a memory-mapped file on a shared folder; and a bug which could result in corruption when compacting VDI or VHD images with snapshots has also been resolved.

Apple may find itself on the precipice of an antitrust lawsuit over its handling of ebooks, but on the flipside is quickly becoming a key witness in the US Government's continuing investigation into Google's business practices. The Federal Trade Commission has asked the Cupertino, Calif. company to detail Google's integration into iOS.

Google has been the default search engine for the iPhone since its debut in 2007, and on the iPad since 2010. While consumers do have the option to change the setting to Yahoo or Microsoft's Bing, from the factory it's all Google. Google Maps also is the basis for iOS' navigation functionality, with no other options provided.

Today, SalesCrunch publicly disclosed its unsolicited -- what some would call outrageous, low-ball -- offer for WebEx. The online communications platform startup would pay Cisco Systems one dollar plus a 15-percent stake. Essentially, SalesCrunch offers nothing for WebEx, and really asks the tech giant to pay for the privilege of unloading the online-collaboration suite.

Cisco acquired WebEx for $3.2 billion in 2007. A single dollar might as well be nothing. But it's more than that. SalesCrunch wants WebEx assets to build out its own platform, and, of course, the customers. Cisco's involvement could instill confidence, and the bold play for WebEx demonstrate SalesCrunch's hunger to succeed by thinking outside the box. The 15-percent stake could assist the startup winning new rounds of funding or enticing new investors -- hence the concept asking the communications giant to pay SalesCrunch to take on the business.

BetaNews is pleased to be a media sponsor of Newegg's March Mania Ultrabook-a-Day Giveaway, starting today and going for 21. Each day the tech retailer, in cooperation with Intel, will award one lucky winner an Acer Aspire S3-951-6646, ASUS Zenbook UX21E-DH52 or Lenovo IdeaPad U300s Ultrabook.

Why just watch March Madness when you can get a little crazy trying to win one of these sleek Ultrabooks?

Dell announced on Tuesday that it will be acquiring firewall and network security management company SonicWall Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Analysts estimate the transaction to be valued at more than a billion dollars.

Dell, which led the consumer personal computer market in the late 90's and early 2000's, is repositioning itself as a systems and solutions provider for government and private enterprise. In February, the company unveiled new storage arrays, virtual network architecture framework, private cloud deployment services, and data warehousing appliances along with a message from founder, chairman, and CEO Michael Dell that Dell "isn't really a PC company."

Though it doesn't identify exactly what "cloud computing skills" actually are, business intelligence firm Wanted Analytics on Tuesday said more than 5,000 U.S. cloud computing job openings were listed online in February alone. This is up 92 percent from February 2011, and an impressive 400 percent from February 2010.

Software Engineers, Computer Systems Engineers and Architects, and Network and Computer Systems Administrators are the three jobs that most commonly listed cloud computing skills. However, Wanted Analytics said 2011 job listings weren't just in the engineering and administration sector. Jobs in marketing, sales, and financial and marketing analysis also demanded experience with cloud computing at much greater rates than previous years.

Apple and Motorola held talks late last year to settle the patent row between the two companies but Motorola's demands blew up the deal, legal filings now indicate. The revelations are part of documents from the European Union's review of the merger between Google and Motorola, and essentially flips the argument that Apple is the patent bully in this mess.

Motorola gets a pass in the patent row that has become a crippling plague in the technology sector, while Apple is continuously beat up by pundits with an ax to grind. But Motorola's demands are so out of line it's almost comical: for Apple to gain access to Moto's standards-essential patents, it has to license all of its own porfolio.

Nitro PDF has updated its free PDF reader and creator, Nitro Reader, to version 2.3. The latest version, which is also available as a 64-bit app promises improved performance through reduced memory usage, plus revamps its QuickSign signature tool and adds a smattering of new features in addition to various bug fixes.

Nitro Reader has carved itself a niche in the PDF reader market by providing a feature-rich application that includes powerful PDF creation tools as well as viewing ones, all without delivering ads or nags to upgrade to a paid-for version. Version 2.3 aims to maintain its lead in the feature stakes while significantly cutting back on its system demands.

Microsoft had better hop to it and release Windows 8, because iPad adoption among enterprises is way up -- and that's without Apple really trying to sell tablets there.

Bolstering a January IDG Connect Study, ChangeWave finds that one in five businesses will buy a tablet next quarter, with the majority overwhelmingly planning on iPad. That's 84 percent, up from 77 percent in November. Meanwhile, interest in all competing tablets declined.