E-books now more popular than books, says Amazon
In three and a half years, Amazon's Kindle has grown from a single dedicated e-reader to a full-blown e-book platform available on nearly every popular operating system. Today, Amazon announced that Kindle-format e-books have finally begun to outsell traditional paper-bound books.
Since April 1, 2011, Amazon has been selling 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books it sells. It's only a small lead, but just one year ago, Amazon was only selling 60 Kindle books to every 100 paper books, so sales growth has been extremely rapid.
Xbox update adds PayPal, hopefully no bricks
Today, Microsoft announced that the latest Xbox 360 system "Spring" update is immediately available, on a rolling out basis. So some lucky gamers will get the update today, while others will have to wait. They're lucky as long as the update doesn't, ah, brick their consoles.
Microsoft's Major Nelson (aka Larry Hryb) formally announced the update, which will allow "U.S. and international Xbox Live users to make purchases on their Xbox 360 consoles with their PayPal accounts." Well, almost internationally. PayPal won't be available in more than a dozen countries: Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan. That includes most of the BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia and India. In other words, if you live in three of the four largest emerging markets, Xbox Live and PayPal aren't for you.
An honest appraisal of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1
If you don't read Betanews often, or don't really get a feel for my personality through my writing, allow me to give you a brief introduction that is also something of a disclosure of bias.
My name is Tim Conneally, I happen to own a television, computer monitor, and Android smartphone made by Samsung, and like 5,000 other lucky slobs, I got a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 simply by being present at Google I/O 2011.
LinkedIn's IPO leads to $352.8 million payday
Corporate-minded social network LinkedIn announced it had sold more 7.84 million shares in an initial public offering at $45 each, raising $352.8 million for the company. The high demand for stock in LinkedIn also caused it to raise its IPO price to $42 to $45 from an initial range of $32 to $35.
The windfall certainly benefits co-founders Reid Hoffman and Jean-Luc Vaillant, who founded the company in Reid's living room in 2002 with three others. It also may signal the beginning of another spurt of tech IPOs -- a rare commodity since the dot-com bust.
Software Assurance math adds up for Microsoft, not as much for biz customers
Fourth in a series. What constitues savings when buying software upgrades? For Microsoft customers there are but two choices: Buy extra-cost Software Assurance when purchasing a new license or pay full price later on.
It's a gamble that Microsoft will release something new during the three-year SA contract period or that the licensee will even want the product. Savings can be 13 percent over three years, but the costs are sometimes substantially higher.
Startup Disk 3.0 boosts Windows bootup time
Brisbane-based software developer r2 Studios has released a major update to its pioneering startup management application. As the name implies, Startup Delayer 3.0 allows users to delay startup applications to free up system resources and optimize the startup routine. It's also a fully featured startup manager by allowing users to disable and delete unwanted startup applications too.
Version 3.0 is virtually unrecognizable from its predecessors, sporting numerous new features, a recoded startup delay engine and a brand new user interface with drag-and-drop support. It's also now fully compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows (including Windows 7) and User Account Control.
3 ways and lots of software to protect your PC from malware
Microsoft recently revealed that 1 in every 14 downloads on the Windows platform contains malicious software. That's a scary thought, and means your security software could be working overtime in trying to prevent your PC from becoming infected.
Thankfully there are plenty of free (and safe, obviously) tools out there that can help reduce the risk of being infected by malicious software to practically zero. Read on, for our essential guide to the best free tools for helping steer you away from dangerous downloads and websites with malicious intent.
PSN is back up, but Sony's servers are still not secure
Reports indicate that Sony still does not have its network fully secure: an exploit is now available allowing users to reset your account password with only an e-mail address and date of birth. With this data now publicly available due to the previous hack of the PlayStation Network, it puts millions of users again at risk.
The issue, first reported by gaming blog Nyleveia late Tuesday, shows how stunningly insecure Sony's servers just may be. Details of the vulnerability were released to the Japanese company before being publicized.
Microsoft helps stop malware, while Apple blows off malware victims
Yes, it looks like real malware has finally come to Macintosh, and Apple is blowing off users who call for support for the problem. But I'm sure Apple is doing it with style, and that's what really matters. The style of the day is unaccommodating.
If you're not already angry about something, read Ed Bott's blog at ZDNet to see how Apple is handling what appears to be the first real outbreak of malware on Apple Macs in the OS X era. An AppleCare support rep tells Ed that a notice from management tells them that "...we're not supposed to help customers remove malware from their computer."
Which Windows 8 version will you buy?
That's a question many customers may ask, if a report from Bloomberg proves to be right: There will be at least five Windows 8 editions -- four for ARM processors. Bloomberg quotes Intel's Renee James, from a presentation given earlier today. It's not exactly Intel's place to be revealing Microsoft Windows versioning plans, which is reason enough to question the claims. But, hey, the duopoly is called Wintel for a reason.
Microsoft has already announced that the next Windows version will support ARM processors. So it's unsurprising that Windows 8 might fork down separate ARM and x86 paths. For the purpose of this story, I'm calling it Windows 8. But Microsoft hasn't announced or seriously hinted at the nomenclature. You can take the name or leave it.
Verizon announces Motorola Droid X2: Dual-core, but not 4G
Motorola Mobility and Verizon Wireless on Wednesday unveiled the Motorola Droid X2, the latest flagship Android smartphone under the "Droid" brand and follow up to last year's Droid X.
In most respects, the Droid X (shown above on the left), and the Droid X2 are identical. Their size, weight, RAM and onboard memory, camera, and launch price are exactly the same. However, the Droid X2 has received a moderate improvement in certain important areas.
Microsoft's Software Assurance pressures businesses to buy before they're ready
Third in a Series. A decade has passed since Microsoft introduced "Software Assurance" as part of Licensing 6.0. The company rewards loyal customers by asking them to pay ahead for upgrades -- 29 percent of total desktop software price and 25 percent for server products, annually, for two or three years. Customers must make the decision to add Software Assurance when acquiring a new license. It's a one-shot option, with no assurance what the product will be or when it will be available.
Imagine that you have just purchased a new 2011-model car. You've signed the contract, figured you could afford the monthly payments and are thinking Point B looks a lot better from Point A than it ever did.
Microsoft: IE9 security warnings cut malware threat 95%
Since 2008, Microsoft has included a reputation-based anti-phishing and anti-malware tool in Internet Explorer called SmartScreen Filter. In IE9, the latest version of Microsoft's browser, SmartScreen got a bump in functionality and began to check the reputation of applications as well. Today, the IE9 security team released some interesting data culled from all of SmartScreen's app reputation queries.
According to the team, 1 in 14 programs that are downloaded are later determined to be malware, and in most cases, the malicious software was installed as a result of good old fashioned social engineering.
Sony offers virtual goods as payback for PlayStation Network outage: a worthy refund?
To compensate for the 24-day long outage of the Playstation Network that occurred as a result of a major security compromise, Sony Computer Entertainment is offering PSN users a "welcome back" package of free content.
SCEA is calling it a "customer appreciation program" that is available to all registered PSN users in the US and Canada. For 30 days after the PlayStation Store is restored, users can download and keep two games for either the PS3 or PSP, including: Dead Nation, inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet, Super Stardust HD, and Wipeout HD + Fury (PS3) or LittleBigPlanet PSP, ModNation Racers, Pursuit Force, or Killzone Liberation (PSP).
OSForensics gives up your PC's deepest, darkest secrets
Computer forensics packages are normally used by law enforcement officials, governments and big corporations to find out exactly what someone has been doing on a particular PC. But that's only part of what they can do. A good forensics tool can also help you find lost files, recover passwords, detect malware, and carry out all kinds of other interesting low-level system checks.
It's hard to test this for yourself, of course, because most forensics packages are hugely expensive. But OSForensics is a rare exception. As it's new, and in beta, you can try it out for free -- and there are plenty of reasons why you should grab a copy for yourself.
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