Articles about Cloud

Opera 12.12 has been released for Windows, Mac and Linux. This Norwegian cross-platform browser and email client -- also available as Opera 12.12 64-bit for Windows 64-bit platforms, is primarily a bug-fix release, with emphasis on security and stability.

It does, however, make changes to the Delete Private Data tool, promising a redesign and new option as well as fixing a potentially critical issue.

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If you're planning to Instagram lots of photos this holiday, think again. They might be in next year's commercial marketing -- your embarrassing candid plastered on billboards everywhere -- and you have no real say about it. Big companies use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 to keep you from sharing stuff. Instragram takes away such recourse for you, overnight announcing one of the biggest rights policy changes of the contextual cloud computing era. The photo-sharing site claims the right to sell your content, offering you absolutely no compensation for the privilege.

The change is snakey sneaky: "Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service", but "Instagram Content is protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other laws, and, as between you and Instagram, Instagram owns and retains all rights in the Instagram Content and the Service". You give up your rights to ownership simply by using the service, which gives you nothing.

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Seventh in a series. Welcome to another episode of what's hot and new in Windows Store. This week we have seen the release of a couple of official apps, Adobe Reader and Yahoo! Mail for instance, that made an appearance in store.

Other companies like Google or Facebook are monitoring the development of Windows 8 before they commit resources to building apps for the operating system. It is likely, however, that we will see additional official app releases for Microsoft's operating system in the weeks to come.

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If you're a heavy Google user, every day is like Christmas -- well, in 2012. Not a day goes by that the company doesn't release something new. Updates are relentless, with products in continual states of improvement. Today's touted 18 24 Google+ enhancements are examples. Editor's note: Hours after we posted, Google changed the number from 18 to 24. The approach is philosophical and corporate cultural and defies traditional software development cycles Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and others adopted long ago. The relentless releases is for stuff Google mostly gives away for free. Now why is that?

Years ago, I wrote several seething stories about perpetual Google betas (Gmail was 5 years, right?) and Microsoft somewhat mimicking the approach. (I can't find the stories this morning. If you can, please link in comments.) The search giant's work was never done, while competitors rolled major enhancements together made available all at once on long lead cycles (Hey, three years separate Windows 7 and 8 launches). Microsoft chooses the big blockbuster movie approach, which predicates a work largely done -- a story completely told. Google is the serialist, telling an ongoing story in a quick succession of releases. Which works better? You tell me.

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The SZ Development released Free Music Downloader 1.30, the latest edition of its MP3 download tool, and the update is mainly about extending its list of supported sites.

The program provides a simple, free and portable way to search a number of sources for music. This update adds support for BandCamp, Hypem and Xiami to the existing list of sites and services, which also includes www.last.fm, vkontakte.ru, goear.com, GrooveShark.com, SoundCloud.com, mixcloud.com, ProstoPleer.com and 8Tracks.com. Elsewhere, a bug fix sees LastFM searches and downloads working again.

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Soon after Apple replaced Google’s aging but accurate mapping solution with its own brand new, but woefully inaccurate alternative, I -- like many disgruntled iOS 6 upgraders -- switched to using the web-version of Google Maps (I briefly toyed with Nokia Here, but it’s not yet as good). The workaround was fine, but I only ever viewed it as a temporary stopgap while awaiting the triumphant return of Google Maps to the App Store, something that finally happened a couple of days ago.

Google Maps shot to the top of the free charts with indecent haste, further embarrassing Apple in the process, as users scrambled to install it. I installed it too, naturally, but held off on reviewing it immediately, as I wanted to make sure my happiness at its arrival wasn’t going to cloud my judgment. And the good news is, having now had plenty of time to play around with it, it’s great. Not perfect, but pretty damn close.

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According to Total Defense, a provider of internet security services and a former division of CA Technologies, the web is the primary vector for malware, with 85 percent of all threats originating there. More than 6,000 websites are infected every day, the company says, and the statistics don’t end there. It’s said that at least 75 percent of the world’s email is spam, and Total Defense estimates over 50 percent of malicious messages take the form of blended  attacks designed to lure recipients into visiting infected web pages.

To prevent firms falling foul of these kind of threats the company has announced what it’s calling the "industry’s first true cloud security platform", offering enterprises and small-to-medium businesses multi-layered cloud-based protection.

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I won't lie and say I didn't see this coming -- after all, Microsoft's Live Mesh app has been on life support for some time. Still, it hurts to see it go.

Back in August, Microsoft began overhauling its Live services, along with other changes in its transformation to prepare for Windows 8. When it released the latest iteration with a name change from "Live Essentials" to "Windows Essentials 2012", it was a scaled back array of apps that did not include Live Mesh. The writing was on the wall.

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Remember that Googlezon video from a few years ago? The one that predicted Google and Amazon would take over the world with, perhaps, apocalyptic results? Well, none of that has come to pass, but both companies continue to grow and expand. Amazon, increasingly becoming as much of a content delivery system as a product retailer, made several bold moves to get its media out to even more platforms, today.

For starters, Amazon moved to bring its Cloud Player music service to both Samsung Smart TV's and Roku set-top boxes and made its Instant Video service available for the iPhone and iPod touch. Both services are essentially cloud interfaces for your media.

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It’s that time of the year where it’s a great time to pick up a software bargain. Through December and the Christmas holiday season, the Downloadcrew Software Store has various software deals that are worth some consideration. Best of all, the Downloadcrew “Giveaway” site returns this Christmas, with five superb exclusive full software giveaway offers, for everyone.

You may have picked up a brand new Windows 8 computer during the festive season. If so, the first thing you’ll want to do is pick up a security suite to keep your system secure. The Downloadcrew Software Store is packed full of security offers from Bitdefender, AVG, Kaspersky, Avira and other brands.

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What Apple takes away, Google gives back. Early this morning, Google Maps arrived for iPhone, replacing the app removed by Apple with release of iOS 6. The company's homegrown product proved nothing short of disastrous, for the fruit-logo brand and customers using the app/service. Earlier this week, law enforcement in Australia warned against using Apple Maps, after motorists were misdirected and their lives put at risk.

Reviews rightly have been scathing, while iPhone users cried not to Apple but Google for direction. Now that it's here, irony comes along. Android's developer may do more for current iOS than its maker. A surprising number of people held back iOS 6 upgrades or iPhone 5 purchases, not wanting to give up Google Maps or take on Apple's replacement.

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We have seen top-10 lists now from Yahoo, Twitter and Facebook. Sure, all of them provided the raw data pertaining to the most-searched for and most-talked about products, events, people and more from the past year. Google, with it's popular Zeitgeist release, did the same. But the search leader took it one step further and, in so doing, was the real winner in this 2012 popularity contest.

Google provides perspective and emotion to raw, boring statistics and creates something that is appealing to basic human instincts. The company put together a video that will jog your memory, make you smile and bring a tear to your eye.

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Within the past few days Instagram has divorced Twitter and added a new filter, Twitter got into the Instagram game by adding photo filters and now Yahoo-owned photo sharing service Flickr has joined the fray with its new iPhone app update. You can probably guess where this announcement is going.

Yes, Flickr has added a set of filters that users can access upon snapping a photo. Like Instagram and now Twitter, there are a standard set of filters including black and white and 15 others that are now part of the built-in editor, which also allows you to crop your image right on the spot. You can then share it via Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or email.

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Centigrade to Fahrenheit, miles to kilometers, pounds to kilograms -- everyone needs a unit conversion tool occasionally. And if you’re working with simple units, and are online at the time, then a quick web search will probably find a service to help. Or you can often use Google directly: just type 55F in C into the search box for a quick temperature conversion, for instance.

If you’d like some offline assistance, though, or need to run more unusual conversions, then the free ESBUnitConv is a great place to start.

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Sign up for an account with a website and you’ll usually see them promising not to share your details with others. “We hate spam as much as you do”, they might claim, although none of this seems to prevent the endless torrent of junk which pours into our inboxes on a daily basis.

It could be a better idea to simply never give out your main email address in the first place, then. And MaskMe is an excellent Chrome extension that can help.

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