Microsoft rolls out the new MSN, rebrands Bing apps for Windows, Windows Phone
Microsoft did something rather unexpected earlier this month. The software giant unveiled a revamped MSN, saving the online portal from oblivion -- its biggest merit lately is being the default website for Internet Explorer. The new MSN looks great, connects users to Microsoft's consumer-facing cloud services, and can be tailored to suit their preference. It also makes it easy to trigger a search across the InterWebs. Heck, I have even said it might work as the Bing landing page.
Fast forward to today and Microsoft announces that more than 10 million users have tested the new MSN, with more than 80,000 of them also submitting feedback. Those numbers look really good. And they should, considering the online portal's Microsoft-focused audience. The feedback it has received must have been good also, as Microsoft announces it is rolling out the new MSN in the next three days.
Best Windows 8 apps this week
One-Hundredth in a series. Welcome to this week's selection of the best apps and games that were published to Microsoft's Windows Store.
This week saw some strong releases, mostly games though, such as the excellent strategy game Cloud Raiders, the car game Asphalt Overdrive or the football game Fifa 15: UT.
Adobe snaps up cloud image editor Aviary to fast-track SDK development
Seven years after its inception, online image editing service Aviary has been acquired by Adobe. The Photoshop stalwart is no stranger to the cloud, but this latest purchase seems to indicate that the company is looking to expand further in this arena. Pay a visit to the Aviary website and the Adobe branding is already in place -- there's also a new entry on the Aviary company timeline that has been updated to reflect the acquisition. The Adobe-branded Aviary website makes clear the thinking behind the move: "accelerating delivery of mobile apps that integrate with Adobe Creative Cloud".
It seems that the main reason for Adobe's interest in Aviary is the fact that the ornithologically-named firm has developed a number of mobile SDKs. Aviary is already a popular tool, and Adobe is understandably keen to monetize the popularity of cloud apps and mobile services: Aviary is a ready-made package that encompasses both of these ideas perfectly. An announcement by Adobe explains that "the acquisition accelerates Adobe's strategy to make Creative Cloud a vibrant platform for third-party apps, through a new Creative SDK".
How to edit RAW (DNG) photos on your Windows Phone
You should always shoot RAW, if given the option. As opposed to JPG, it's a lossless format. What the sensor sees is exactly what you get in your files. You also get lots more breathing room when editing photos without an apparent drop in quality. Shot in black and white and want to go back to color? No problem, RAW gives you that option. Want to recover shadow details without messing up the look of the image? Again, it's possible, as long as you shoot RAW. Want to recover details from blown highlights? Well, I am sure you get the gist by now.
If you are the lucky user of a Nokia Lumia 1020, Lumia 1520, Lumia Icon or Lumia 930 you can also take advantage of RAW capture. But, after you'll enable the feature, you will soon run into a problem -- what app to use to edit those unusually large files (with a DNG extension), right on your Windows Phone? Well, you can use Rawer.
Best Windows 8 apps this week
Ninety-ninth in a series. Welcome to this week's selection of the best apps and games that were published to Microsoft's Windows Store.
This week saw some strong releases such as Star Wars: Commander, another official Star Wars game that looks to become as successful as Star Wars: Assault Team.
LastPass for iOS adds Safari extension, Touch ID integration in iOS 8
Password-management service LastPass has unveiled LastPass for Premium 3.1.0 for iPad and iPhone users with paid-for LastPass accounts.
Version 3.1.0 taps into two new iOS 8 features to deliver direct support for Safari and Touch ID integration, allowing users to unlock LastPass using their finger rather than a passcode or master password.
SwiftKey is a massive success on iOS 8
SwiftKey has hit the top of Apple’s App Store charts just hours after launching on Apple iOS 8 devices bringing with it the swipe-to-type features that have become second nature to Android users.
The swipe-to-type app is number one among all free "Utilities" apps in the Apple App Store and comes out in second overall for all free apps on the entire Apple App Store.
Microsoft drops Windows Dev Center fee -- expect a crap app avalanche
Free's good, right? Who doesn’t like something gratis? Microsoft has -- sort of -- cottoned onto this idea and dropped the annual fee associated with the Windows Dev Center. The 'sort of' caveat remains because signing up for a Dev Center account is not completely free; there's still a registration fee of $19 to pay, but this is for a lifetime account -- no more annual charges. Announcing the move on the Windows blog, Todd Brix explains that "each of our 600,000+ registered developers will no longer need to pay any additional fees to maintain their account. It’s also a very good time for developers new to the platform to get a Dev Center account and start submitting apps".
Having paid the fee, developers are then free to submit apps to both the Windows Phone Store and the Windows Store. But this is not the only change that's coming to the Dev Center. In what is becoming something of a trend, Microsoft clearly pinned back its ears and made it easier to promote apps and provide offers to users. Improvements to in-app advertising means that campaigns can be more easily run on a global scale and pay outs are made faster.
B1 File Manager adds streaming support
Popular Android app B1 File Manager has been upgraded to 0.8.7 with the addition of cloud streaming support.
As previously, the app can access Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Box and 4Shared accounts, as well as connecting via FTP, SFTP or SMB.
Smartphone users sticking with the same apps rather than downloading new ones
Research has shown that smartphone users are spending more time on their favorite apps rather than downloading new ones, illustrating how difficult it is for new apps and developers to break into the industry.
The study, carried out by Boston-based firm Localytics, also found that consumers are now using apps 21 percent more than they did last year. This rise is apparently down to users opening applications more often, rather than simply spending longer within them. App session length stayed constant at 5.7 minutes, whereas the average amount of app openings increased by 22 percent from 9.4 to 11.5 times a month.
MediaTek and Opera put the squeeze on mobile data consumption
It is no secret that mobile data is still very expensive. Going overboard with audio and video streaming, browsing or app downloads will unavoidably lead to throttling, a pretty steep bill from the mobile operator or a brisk run through the remaining credit. But there is one way of giving mobile device users more breathing room, and that is through data compression. It offers obvious advantages, and comes with no major downsides. What's not to like about that?
That is the selling point that Norwegian browser maker Opera Software and Taiwanese processor maker MediaTek hope will impress new customers, as they announce their new partnership, which will see the former's Opera Max data-savings app being built-into the latter's 4G LTE-enabled offerings. The first fruits of this partnership are two 64-bit chips. The touted data savings are rather impressive.
Amazon Kindle's new old bug could expose your account credentials
A security flaw in Amazon's Kindle software could allow hackers to access your Amazon account details.
Benjamin Daniel Musser, a security researcher, discovered the issue, which arises when downloading e-books from websites other than Amazon itself.
SwiftKey: Top Android keyboard reaches iPads and iPhones
Stock mobile keyboards tend to suck. There's always a deal-breaker somewhere that offsets all their strengths. There is friction when typing in multiple languages, the language support is limited, abbreviations and the like are a no-go, the layout can be unintuitive, there is a limited amount of customization options, or the touch vibrations are too harsh. Take your pick. I have ran into all of them. But, fret not, there are some solid keyboards out there.
The one keyboard which I am a huge fan of is SwiftKey. It shames every stock keyboard and it's generally better than any other third-party offering. With Google being the only mobile operating system maker to allow third-party keyboards, it has only been available on Android. But, now that Apple has followed suit, you can get your hands on SwiftKey on an iPad or iPhone too. And you should, first of all because it's free!
Over three-quarters of mobile apps will fail security tests by 2015
New research by analysts at Gartner shows that more than 75 percent of mobile apps are set to fail basic security tests by 2015.
This is a particular worry for enterprises as employees may download software from app stores. These apps offer minimal or no security assurances but are able to access sensitive business data and violate company security policy.
Flipboard for Windows Phone: It's coming, damn it!
I remember it like it was yesterday: when Lumia 1020 was unveiled, Microsoft and Nokia were very happy to announce that Flipboard would "soon" be coming to Windows Phone. That was in mid-July 2013. Fast forward to today and the app is still not available. "Soon" has a certain urgency to it, which, for some strange reason, always seems to be missing in its association with Windows Phone.
Microsoft and Nokia could have jumped the gun more than a year ago by touting that the app would arrive shortly after Lumia 1020's announcement, and Flipboard could have inadvertently delayed the launch since. No matter, "soon" sure ain't soon. Regardless, Flipboard is still on its way as its public listing on Windows Phone Store implies. This is one of the major missing titles; the sooner it is available the better for the platform.
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