Latest Technology News

Download Google Chrome 3.0.192.1 for Windows from Fileforum now.

Just a few months ago, Apple Safari 4 could stake a claim to being the fastest Web browser available for Windows. But although its speed has improved even since then, especially in the second update since its official launch released late Wednesday, Safari is now as much as 30% slower than the latest beta of Google Chrome 3, released the following morning. This according to Betanews tests completed late Thursday.

To put a bigger dent in Apple's growing command of the US mobile phone market, T-Mobile USA will start to use weapons ranging from hardware diversity to "usability," improved customer service, and new software applications, according to Cole Brodman, CTO for the mobile carrier.

"IPhones are great, but Apple's vision isn't as wide," Brodman contended, during an interview with Betanews at a New York City press event on Thursday.

Download Microsoft Silverlight 3 for Windows Final from Fileforum now.

A day earlier than expected, though not without precedent,

In a speech delivered this morning in Brussels before the Lisbon Council, the European Commissioner for Telecoms and Digital Media, Viviane Reding, raised a point she's made before: that one reason piracy is so rampant on the Internet is because rights holders and media publishers have yet to produce a viable, desirable alternative for media consumers. This time, the phrase Comm. Reding used to describe piracy was "sexy."

But in a novel addition to her ongoing effort to produce a policy she calls Digital Europe, Reding suggested that her government could assist rights holders and publishers, enabling them to spend more time and resources developing that "sexier" alternative. Specifically, she proposed a system whereby the EU government could serve as the online clearinghouse for intellectual property rights covering the entire continent.

Both Sony Bravia connected HDTVs and the Sony Bravia Internet Video Link module now have access to Netflix on Demand, the popular service which has already found its way onto the Xbox 360, TiVo HD DVRs, LG Blu-Ray players and HDTVs.

Netflix will reside in the Bravia Internet Video platform alongside Amazon Video on Demand, YouTube, Sony Pictures, Sports Illustrated, Crackle, Slacker, Epicurious.com, Concierge.com, Style.com, and Dailymotion. Unfortunately, Sony's PlayStation 3 is not yet compatible with this service, and today's announcement did not mention the video game console.

Today, DVR pioneer TiVo and consumer electronics retailer Best Buy announced they will be working together to boost TiVo adoption and improve Best Buy's digital presence in the consumer's home.

A joint statement from the companies this morning said, "TiVo and Best Buy plan to investigate development of a unique user interface for TiVo DVRs purchased at Best Buy which would provide Best Buy a platform to more effectively market its digital content services, to regularly offer consumers trusted advice and guidance on the digital home experience, and to provide an ongoing dialogue with customers about Best Buy's various retail offerings."

Despite what mobile carriers have been saying about LTE's readiness, there is still a fundamental problem with the deployment of an all-data packet switched network: its incompatibility with the old circuit-switched networks. Though LTE will support a tremendous jump in data transmission speeds on our mobile devices, it still cannot support voice and SMS functionality because those are built on the old circuit switched architecture.

Currently, there are a few ways this problem can be tackled. There is IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), the 3GPP-endorsed way that delivers voice and SMS through IP architecture, sort of like a big VoIP system. There is network hybridization, where the 4G network would only handle data and the legacy 2G/3G networks would handle voice and SMS. Finally, there is VoLGA, or Voice over LTE via Generic Access, a spec based upon 3GPP's GAN standard, which allows circuit switched traffic to be piped into LTE packets.

I so want to root for Google, but I'm having a tough time denying the power of history.

On the surface, Google's announcement this week that it's developing a new primarily-for-netbooks operating system called Google Chrome OS, is good news for an industry badly in need of an operating system rethink.

I have a little personality test for you today: Which of the following GAO findings released Wednesday made you laugh hardest about the Federal Protective Service's contract security guard program?

· The armed guard photographed at a Level IV (high volume / high public contact / high sensitivity) facility asleep at his desk after taking Percocet, a bottle of which is in front of him in a photo in the GAO report;

The problem with awful neighbors is that the drama never ends, as South Korea would doubtless be the first to tell you. Officials there, having scanned the code that powered the recent DDoS attacks on that nation (and, apparently, the US), were braced for attacks Thursday afternoon (local time) on seven agencies.

South Korea under cyber-attack again

T-Mobile USA's myTouch 3G, the second Android phone to spring up in the US market, is geared to greater customizability and ease of use than the earlier G1, said Cole Brodman, T-Mobile USA's chief technology officer, at a press event in Manhattan on Wednesday.

The nation's premiere Android phone carrier will follow up with two additional Android phones this fall, but these will not include HTC's Hero, a new mobile phone that Orange has already signed on for in Europe.

[Before we start, a note to everyone expecting a column about the Social Security Guess Mess: Something's come up re the topic and I'm going to hold off for a bit while I figure out if it's an interesting "something." Thanks for your interest and stay tuned.]

The paper titled "Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising," brought to you by the four largest online advertising trade associations, is 15 pages long and includes sentences such as "The Principles apply to online behavioral advertising, defined as the collection of data online from a particular computer or device regarding Web viewing behaviors over time and across non-affiliate Web sites for the purpose of using such data to predict user preferences or interests to deliver advertising to that computer or device based on the preferences or interests inferred from such Web viewing behaviors."

As first noted by ZDNet blogger Ed Bott this morning, at least one online software retailer has posted a listing for a Microsoft Windows 7 product corresponding to what bloggers earlier this week had speculated upon: a three-license discount package for purchasers of Windows 7 Home Premium.

The listing from Utah-based Expercom clearly shows something being called "Windows 7 Family Pack/Home Premium Upgrade," with a price of $136.95. While this could be a multiple license package as many suspect, the other possibility is that it's some kind of extra software bundle. However, there's not much else that Microsoft sells shrink-wrapped these days at a price point at or around $37.

Marking the second generation Kindle's fifth month of availability and its passage into the "majority phase" of the Rogers adoption curve, Amazon has lopped 15% of the popular e-reader's price. The device's price today was dropped to $299.

Though Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said the company may never disclose the Kindle's sales figures, an estimated 300,000 Kindle 2 units were reportedly shipped in April. In May, Amazon unveiled the Kindle DX, which has actually struggled to keep up with demand.

The only problem with Microsoft naming Steven Sinofsky president of the Windows division is the timing. He deserved this promotion long ago, and Microsoft has long needed someone in charge of the division.

Microsoft was wrong to wait until Sinofsky's team nearly finished Windows 7 to give out this badly needed promotion. The Client division is hemorrhaging profits, as Vista enthusiasm collapses and PC sales plummet.