Latest Technology News

Are you thinking of developing apps for Honeycomb, or perhaps are waiting to buy an Android 3.0 tablet? Perhaps you should reconsider iPad. Gartner claims that Apple's iOS will dominate the media tablet operating system market at least through 2015. If the analyst firm is right, Apple's tablet -- and broader mobile platform -- will be the premiere choice for the foreseeable future and the one where the larger number of apps will be.

Of course, as I've been repeatedly writing, the categories media tablet and smartphone are in such huge flux, making any prediction is questionable at best. However, with iPad selling so well and most Honeycomb tablets MIA until at least summer, this forecast is more credible than Gartner's predictions about smartphones in 2015 -- at least in the short term.

Continue reading →

Adobe is fully integrating mobile tablets into Photoshop CS5, turning them into powerful peripherals for content creation and display. On Monday, Adobe announced the Photoshop Touch SDK, and three iPad applications (Color Lava, Eazel, and Nav) which show the impressive new capabilities that an iPad or touchscreen tablet can give your Photoshop setup.

With the launch of the iPad 2 earlier this year, Apple launched iPad-optimized versions of Garageband and iMovie, two pieces of software that finally began to prove mobile tablets aren't just for content consumption, but also content creation. But those apps, like Photoshop for iPad, are just pared down versions of desktop software meant to stand on their own.

Continue reading →

Microsoft's big web developer event, MIX11, unofficially begins tomorrow, with the big action taking place from April 12-14 in Las Vegas. It's Microsoft's most important MIX ever, because of the user interface and user experience (UX) changes accompanying the tumultuous move from the PC era to cloud-connected devices. Then there is Microsoft's increased emphasis on making you the natural user interface for all CPU-driven devices.

This year's keynoters include three important Microsoft execs:  Joe Belfiore (Windows Phone), Scott Guthrie (.NET development) and Dean Hachamovitch (Internet Explorer). Sessions cover a wide range of Microsoft development tools or platforms, including Azure, IE, Silverlight and Windows Phone. Like the last two years, attendees can expect to hear lots about natural user interfaces, cutely referred to as NUIs.

Continue reading →

Or should that be goose is cooked? Perhaps you have a better cliché.

It's a good week to end with the question. On Tuesday, Gartner told CIOs to get off their butts and start adopting tablets right away. Today, a Google AdMob survey revealed that 28 percent of tablet owners have made the device their primacy PC. Gartner's recommendation cuts into Microsoft's core business. The tablet survey foreshadows dramatic consumer, and eventually business, behavioral changes ahead.

Continue reading →

Google's planned $700 million acquisition of flight data provider ITA was given the go-ahead by the justice department on Friday, but not without some key concessions. One of them may erase any competitive advantage from the deal: it will require to both develop and license travel software as a result.

For a period of five years, the company will be required to provide these licenses "on commercially reasonable terms." Google will also be required to keep investments in research and development at similar levels to past years for those five years as well.

Continue reading →

Aiming to take on the iPad where few competitors have -- on price -- Acer on Friday said that it would begin shipping its Iconia Tab tablet for $449 later this month. The device sports a 10.1-inch screen, a NVIDIA 1GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of storage and runs on Android 3.0 "Honeycomb."

The Iconia Tab's feature set will put it on par with Apple's top-selling tablet, and will be one of the few that sells at a lower price yet matches the iPad on features. Tablet manufacturers have so far struggled to produce devices that could viably compete with Apple's tablet, likely due to economies of scale.

Continue reading →

The list of victims in last week's security breach at email marketing firm Epsilon Interactive continues to grow, expanding to as many as 50 companies and exposing thousands -perhaps even millions- of customers' names and email addresses to potential spammers and phishing scammers.

Email marketing expert and CEO of Zeta Interactive, Al DiGuido served as CEO for Epsilon Interactive from 2001-2007. On Friday, he gave us his insight into what possibly went wrong at Epsilon and what could have been done to prevent the breach.

Continue reading →

Skype for Windows has been updated to version 5.3, with the latest release offering a number of enhancements including better quality video during calls received from mobile devices. Skype improved calling by moving the video rotation tasks from the mobile device to the computer receiving the call, making it possible to send higher resolution video and therefore producing a better overall video call experience.

Other new features include the return of the icon that appears in reduced-size contact cards, making possible to see the online stats of contacts at a glance. It is now also possible to change conversation topic by clicking the 'i' button that appears in the header of all conversations.

Continue reading →

There are many possible reasons why a PC might suffer from audio glitches, like pops, crackles or dropouts. And so troubleshooting the problem often becomes a matter of trial and error, where you'll maybe close down every possible background process that you can in an effort to find anything that might help.

LatencyMon offers a much simpler solution. The program uses Microsoft's Event Tracing for Windows technology to monitor what's happening on your PC, and in just a few minutes can produce a detailed report that will highlight some of the processes and drivers that are the most likely cause of your audio issues.

Continue reading →

Flash memory company SanDisk, along with content studio Sony Pictures Entertainment and mobile carriers SoftBank Mobile and Orange, are working on an IEEE draft standard that seeks to tackle the mobile network traffic problem created when too many people watch streaming video at the same time. The standard, called HQME (High Quality Mobile Experience) partitions off a section of a phone's memory and automatically caches the most popular web media content when network traffic is at its lowest.

The demand for mobile bandwidth is extremely high already, and only getting worse. At two points in the work day, there are huge spikes in consumption when everyone is simultaneously logged in and attempting to connect to some form of media.

Continue reading →

RITLabs has released a major update to its email client. The Bat! 5.0 features a complete rework of the program's intercommunication mechanisms, which significantly improves the way it access mail via IMAP. Not only does this make the program more stable and secure, but it also allows for the implementation of new search capabilities.

The Bat! 5.0 also boasts several new features, including folder information panels that display dynamically updated information about the currently selected mail folder, and a "smart" hints function that pops up relevant options when the mouse is pointed at specific parts of the program.

Continue reading →

Google is putting its AdMob acquisition to good data analysis use, releasing some fascinating findings about tablets. A March survey of 1,430 (presumably) tablet owners reveals that the majority (77 percent) use their desktop or laptop PC less after buying the device. Twenty-eight percent use the tablet as their primary PC.  A tablet may not be a PC by definition, but it's functionally equivalent enough for some people.

Like I wrote in February: "The PC era is over."

Continue reading →

Earlier today, Microsoft released its Bing app for iPad -- and, whoa is it beautiful. The iPad screen grabs here are poor representations of how good this app looks and how functionally useful it is. Bing for iPad is so delish I could lick the screen. Did I mention that it's useful? I'd pay, even if Microsoft charged a buck ninety-nine.

Microsoft doesn't get the credit deserved for applications development. The company seems to do its best work when freed from Windows. Yes, that's a criticism. Windows is a ball and chain for Microsoft developers. Office for Macintosh is one of Microsoft's best applications, and it's exceptional among Mac software titles. Xbox and Xbox Live also show what Microsoft developers can do when their creative juices are freed from Windows. Kinect is even better example, and Bing for iPad is another.

Continue reading →

On a party line vote, the Federal Communications Commission mandated larger carriers to sign roaming agreements for mobile data with their smaller competitors, a move that had been widely expected. Previously such agreements had been voluntary, allowing big carriers such as AT&T and Verizon to hold a competitive advantage over rivals.

Three Democratic commissioners -- Chairman Julius Genachowski, Mignon Clyburn, and Michael Copps -- voted for the deal, while the two Republicans -- Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker -- voted against it. McDowell went a step further and maintained the FCC lacked the legal authority to enforce the measure.

Continue reading →

Security specialist Emsisoft has released Online Armor 5.0, the latest version of their do-everything firewall package. If you've tried the program before then the most immediately obvious change will be its revamped interface, which makes it easier to locate the features you need and to understand the various alerts that you'll see.

Online Armor has now also extended its program trust level settings, which allow it to define exactly how much access your installed applications have to key files, folders and Registry keys.

Continue reading →