Latest Technology News

It must be Monday in Japan. Why else would Sony announce new laptops on a Sunday morning here? Today, the electronics company revealed autumn upgrades to its VAIO S & F series laptops and L desktop. The new systems are available immediately.

VAIO S series laptops come with 13.3-inch or 15.5-inch displays, with prices starting at $999. These models are thin, less than 1-inch thick, but nowhere as petite as Sony Z series notebooks. F series laptops are thicker, heavier and cheaper to buy. Prices start at $719, $749 and $799 for models with 14-inch, 15.5-inch and 17-inch displays, respectively.

Firefox 7 was finally released this week, to promises of improved memory management and better performance than ever before.

But if it still doesn’t quite deliver the speed you need then you could always turn to Pale Moon 7, a browser that takes the same Firefox source code and makes more use of compiler optimizations to increase its speed and efficiency.

It was another busy seven days of software releases, with the much anticipated final build of Firefox 7 hitting the severs. With improved memory usage and performance, this is a great upgrade to the popular browser. Firefox Portable 7.0 was also released, and the relentless Firefox update cycle continues with the release of Firefox 8.0 Beta 1, Firefox Aurora 9.0a2, Firefox 10.0a1 (Nightly) and Firefox 10.0a1 UX, which is a sideline project of Nightly, introducing a brand new Firefox user-interface.

Also released by Mozilla is SeaMonkey 2.4.1, a suite of Internet tools including an email client, IRC client and web editor. Again a portable version is available in the form ofSeaMonkey Portable 2.4. Rounding up Mozilla’s trio of releases is Thunderbird 7. This email client includes more tools than ever to help you to manage your inbox and while many of the changes amount to little more than minor tweaks, this is now a solid and impressive piece of software. Fans of portable software will be pleased to know that Thunderbird Portable 7.0 has also been released.

Internet Explorer lost market share (again) in September, with Google Chrome collecting the difference. Meanwhile, Firefox share is stagnant, as Chrome pushes ever closer to the No. 2 spot in global browser usage share.

It's first day of the month, and that means new browser share data from Net Applications. Internet Explorer usage share is 54.39 percent, down from 60.35 percent in November 2010. Firefox fell to 22.48 percent from 23.52 percent during the same time period. September marked the fourth consecutive month of decline for Firefox. Meanwhile, Chrome usage share rose to 16.2 percent from 9.57 from November to September, consecutively gaining share for all 11 months.

Is Google Chrome suddenly not working for you? If Microsoft Security Essentials is installed on your PC, that's likely explanation. It seems that, well, ah, that the security software is misidentifying the browser as malware. Oh, Microsoft you wish! With Chrome market share going up, surely someone at Microsoft sees the Google browser as an infestation to be purged.

But ribbing aside, it's just one of those glitches that sometimes occurs with software. But surely there's a script here somewhere for how Microsoft would like to remove unwelcome software on your Windows PC. Gone it is. If you're affected, it's possible Security Essentials has identified Chrome as "PWS:Win32/Zbot" and removed it from your PC. Quick! Where's the Internet Explorer 6 installation disc? :)

Next week Apple will announce new iPhones. There will be a backlash. There will be praise. Much of the significance will be lost in the noise.

Instead, Apple’s metrics should focus rivals’ attention on the importance of multi-year strategies.

The hottest tablet to debut in months has pretty puny specs. There's no camera, no Bluetooth, no sensors for orientation and no 3G radio. The device runs Android 2.1, but it's customized such your existing apps probably won't run -- and Amazon has developed its own web browser, too. But the $199 price is compelling, and seemingly everyone is talking about it. So I have to ask: Has Kindle Fire set your wallet ablaze? Amazon is taking preorders for November 15 release. As usual you can answer in comments or email joe at betanews dot com. Then there is the poll below; please take it.

I must admit to having a hearty laugh at the news coverage. For weeks, as Amazon tablet rumors mounted, bloggers and journalists posted story after story asserting that the iPad killer was coming -- like some new-found messiah they worshiped sight unseen who would vanquish the Jesus Pad from Apple cultdom. Over the last two days, many of those same sites posted about how "Kindle Fire is no iPad killer". I laughed my ass off. Seriously, there really needs to be some kind rumor-control meter for the Internet.

Preliminary results are in from Betanews poll: "What price would be low enough for you to buy a media tablet?" For the majority of respondents (30 percent), $199 is the price. Only about 5 percent of you would spend more than $299.

Not that Apple seems all that perplexed about selling tablets ranging from $499 to $829. But perhaps it should be now that Amazon has lowered the price bar to $199 with Kindle Fire.

Skype has updated its Windows software to version 5.6, and while the build is primarily a maintenance release, it does have a few notable changes. Beginners should find it easier to configure the program, for instance, as an enhanced “getting started” wizard walks them through the process of setting up their audio, webcam, adding a profile picture and more.

If you switch to another window or application while on a call, the call monitor automatically pops up to show you the live video call and give you access to basic call controls.

German multimedia specialist MAGIX has introduced the next generation of its high-end consumer video editor, Movie Edit Pro MX.

MX apparently stands for Media-X-change, and represents the idea that MAGIX MX-tagged programs will make it easier to exchange your files with online services, mobile devices and other MAGIX tools.

Adobe has released an update for Photoshop Lightroom, bringing it to version 3.5 and adding support for an increased range of digital cameras. The update supports more high-end cameras' RAW output.

The list of newly supported cameras includes models from Fuji, Nikon, Olympus, Ricoh, Panasonic and more, and the same cameras are now also supported by the Camera Raw plug-in 6.5 for Photoshop. As well as adding new hardware support, Lightroom 3.5 also adds a number of enhancements and fixes bugs.

At the close of Elements 2011, Intel's developer conference aimed at the AppUp app store community, AppUp GM Peter Biddle announced that Intel has acquired Israeli navigation and location services provider Telmap.

The acquisition is part of Intel's strategy to grow its software and services portfolio in a meaningful and (most importantly) multi-platform way, where there won't be too much market consolidation on the consumer side, and the app developer side will be given a richer set of tools to work with.

If you have a gamer in your household, this is a story you might want to read before deciding what to buy them this holiday season.

First person shooters remain hot according to a survey of hotly anticipated upcoming video games, as the top two most sought after games fall in the genre. Research firm Nielsen found that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, available November 8, tops many gamer's wish lists: a quarter of respondents listed the title in their top five holiday games.

I must have been asleep at the wheel yesterday, because somehow this reporter missed the big Skype for Android upgrade. What? You missed it, too?

Well, hells bells. Version 2.5 adds video-calling support for 14 more devices -- and, finally, some big-brand tablets: Motorola XOOM and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. About friggin' time!

What better way for retailers to celebrate the low-cost Amazon Kindle Fire than to offer cut-rate prices on existing tablets. Woot has a one-day special on Motorola XOOM WiFi, refurbished, for $349.99 plus $5 shipping; the tablet typically retails for $499.99. Meanwhile, Best Buy has dropped the price on BlackBerry PlayBook again to $299.99 -- that's $200 off the list price -- for the 16GB model.

The deals come one day after Amazon announced its 7-inch tablet, for $199. The online retailer is taking preorders now, but Kindle Fire doesn't ship until November 15. Best Buy and Woot deals may or may not be coincidentally timed, but they foreshadow what likely will be a price war during the holidays. Tablet prices are going south for the holidays.