Latest Technology News

Everyone should have layered protection when it comes to malware. Unfortunately, different antivirus and antispyware programs aren't designed to sit side-by-side and play nice with each other due to the always-on nature of their protection, but that doesn't mean you can't beef up your security with the help of some free scan-and-remove tools.

The only downside with this approach is that it helps to have these installed before you become infected. The nature of malware is to make it as difficult as possible to install any new software after infection, so what can you do if you've already been infected? If you have access to another, uninfected computer and a blank CD or USB flash drive, then read on for a potential solution.

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One week ago today, iPad 2 went on sale. There are shortages, for which scalpers play no small part. Profiteers buying iPad 2s for resale on Craigslist, eBay or export to other countries are making it difficult for genuine buyers to get the tablets. It's time Apple put people who want to buy and use iPad 2 ahead of those who want to profit from shortages they help create. It's really simple: Put customers before profits.

From the profit perspective, a sale is a sale. Apple can let the scalpers buy up big chunks of tight inventory, knowing that genuine buyers will wait; there is no real tablet competition, so people will come back. That's more revenue, long term anyway, for Apple. From the customer service perspective, Apple would aggressively seek to deter scalping, while working even harder to make sure genuine buyers get their iPad 2s. Scalpers are technically customers, too, from the profit perspective. But the customers Apple should want more are those who buy iPad 2 now for personal or professional use and come back to buy more stuff later. These genuine buyers have potentially longer-term value to Apple than scalpers buying iPad 2s to ship to markets like China and Russia, where the tablet isn't yet available.

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A study on the loading times of websites on both Android and the iPhone came under fire late Thursday, with Apple supporters calling its results flawed and the company behind the study defending its findings amid questions on the methods used to test the iPhone's performance.

Blaze Software, a website optimization company found that on average Android loaded web pages 52 percent faster than the iPhone 4. It also said that it saw no noticeable performance increase due to the optimizations of the JavaScript engine included in iOS 4.3.

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Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard Edition is now available through all Microsoft channels, including OEMs and volume licensing. The company announced all-channel availability earlier today. As the name implies, the server software is specifically intended for small businesses. There is a user account cap and prohibition against connecting to network domains (to prevent larger businesses from buying the lower-cost, integrated suite rather than separate products like Exchange and Windows Server).

Microsoft offers three SBS 2011 versions: Essentials, Standard and Premium Add-On. Essentials, which supports up to 25 user accounts, isn't yet available. Standard supports up to 75 user accounts, either people or devices. SBS 2011 Standard Edition retails for $1,096 with five client-access licenses (CALs). Additional five-packs are $361 -- or $1,447 for 20. Premium Add-On CAL packs retail for $457 for five or $1,831 for 20. Microsoft also provides a trial version of the software good for 90 days.

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On March 28, the New York Times will put a new "freemium" subscription model in place for users accessing news on NYTimes.com. Every month, 20 articles are free, and all further articles are locked unless the user pays a subscription charge: $15 every four weeks for the website and a mobile app, $20 for Web access and an iPad-specific app, or $35 for all access.

In a letter to readers, New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said, "It's an important step that we hope you will see as an investment in The Times, one that will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality journalism to readers around the world and on any platform. The change will primarily affect those who are heavy consumers of the content on our Web site and on mobile applications."

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Ethisphere has chosen its list of the 2011 Most Ethical Companies. Microsoft, which has a somewhat seedy reputation steaming from its European and U.S. antitrust cases, made the list of 110 companies. Many other successful tech companies -- Apple, Facebook and Google among them -- are absent. Of course, who would really expect Facebook to be regarded as ethical?

Microsoft joins the 36 companies new to Ethisphere's list. I'm not so surprised to see Microsoft on the list so much as not seeing it sooner -- at least since 2008 (that's how far back I looked). The company really cleaned up its corporate behavior during the new millennium and even has taken a leadership role among tech companies. It's what I heard Chairman Bill Gates pledge Microsoft would do when he testified in court in Spring 2002. I actually regard Microsoft to be a highly ethical company on many fronts. Then there is the shadow of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations' philanthropic work.

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Online market research company comScore released its Video Metrix online video content ranking for the month of February. The rating tallies up the total online video audience for the U.S., determines how much it consumes per capita, and ranks the top video content providers.

February's total 170 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content for an average of 13.6 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.0 billion viewing sessions in February.

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A new study released Thursday claims that Android loads webpages on average 52 percent faster than iPhone, while also throwing cold water on claims that enhancements to the JavaScript engines of either platform made web surfing faster.

The study from website optimization company Blaze involved an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.3 and a Nexus S running Android 2.3. Tests were performed over 45,000 times using Fortune 1000 websites, and 84 percent of the time the Nexus phone loaded the page faster. Median load time was 2.144 seconds for Android versus 3.254 seconds for the iPhone.

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Today, Opera released a public beta of its browser of the same name. Opera 11.10 beta, codenamed "Barracuda," features a much improved Speed Dial, more seamless experience loading certain required plug-ins and updated support for various web standards.

The standout among this list of changes is the improved Speed Dial feature, which now supports an unlimited number of dials thanks to a new button that allows the user to add new sites to the list, either by typing the address manually or by picking from a list of selections made by Opera. Existing entries can now also be edited to change the site address or display name.

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Sprint has announced it will launch CDMA-based Push-to-Talk technology in the fourth quarter of this year, the network operator announced it would be phasing out its iDEN technology over the next two years, and the new service, called Sprint Direct Connect, is intended to be its replacement.

Sprint began discussing CDMA-based Push-to-Talk communications more than three years ago, and briefly attempted to replace Nextel's iDEN-based PTT with a service from Qualcomm called QChat. Ultimately, though, the carrier abandoned the technology and moved on.

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Copying files in Windows can be slow and inflexible, so it makes sense to look for a little third-party help. And as we found out recently, it can make a real difference: FastCopy was able to copy files up to 30 percent faster than Windows, in some situations.

There are plenty of similar tools around, though, and one of the oldest, Copy Handler, recently saw its first release of 2011. Could the experience behind this nine-year-old open source project improve on FastCopy's excellent performance? We went back to the benchmarks in an effort to find out.

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To accompany its various other iOS apps, Sky News has released a dedicated iPad news app that provides access to the 24 hour news station and a range of other content. The app is currently free of charge to everyone, but in the future access will be free to Sky subscribers, while a monthly fee with be payable by anyone who does not have a satellite package. The app is more varied that other news services, providing a number of different ways to access the latest and recent news.

As Sky News is a 24 hour rolling news channel, the option to view the channel live is to be expected. There is also the option of browsing through the news in Timeline mode which provides access to a collection of news video from the last 24 hours. Whether you are watching live or recorded video, a rewind option is always available so you can review sections you have missed.

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Google's iOS app has undergone a makeover and rebadging. Previously known as Google Mobile App, Google Search still provides easy access to all of Google's online tools, such as Google Docs and Gmail, but the search interface has been redesigned and gesture support has been added. The main focus of the app, as reflected in the name change, is web searching, but links to other online services are still available via a button.

Web searches can be performed in a number of ways -- typing in the usual way, by using voice commands or by taking photographs with your iPhone's camera. However a search is performed, once the results are displayed, a swipe to the right provides access to options that can be used to refine your search, limiting results to images, news, videos and a number of other categories.

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When I buy a book at the book store in my town they charge me 7 percent extra to send to the state of New Jersey. But when I buy it from Amazon.com I don't pay the 7 percent. It's a great deal for Amazon.com and for me, but it's fundamentally unfair. It's time to end the distinction.

I'm one who believes that taxes, as a general matter, should be kept as low as possible. This isn't about revenue -- it's about fairness. There's no logical reason why retail businesses with a physical presence should have to collect sales taxes but e-commerce (and phone/catalog) retailers don't.

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Way back when, Mozilla used slogan "Take back the web!" to promote Firefox. Internet Explorer 9 aims to do just that. Today at Microdoft's Windows Team Blog, Ryan Gavin pronounced, not 1, not 2, but 2.35 million IE9 downloads in 24 hours. It's an impressive number. Internet Explorer 9 has exploded onto the web, as Microsoft makes a grab to take it back from upstarts. We'll see if Mozilla can do as well when Firefox 4 officially launches next week.

Internet Explorer 9 is by far Microsoft's most ambitious browser since v3 launched to great fanfare in summer 1996. Microsoft browser development was ferocious and fast as the software giant sought to take the web away from Netscape. Microsoft would later win the browser wars but lose the fire in its belly. All realistic browser development stopped with IE6's release in October 2001 and didn't resume until after Mozilla launched Firefox in late 2004.

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