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It can sometimes feel like there's a surprise around every corner here in the Linux blogosphere, but it's not often we get to see a company the size of Google make a dramatic shift. That, however, is just what last week afforded when reports emerged that Google would take a markedly different approach to the launch this fall of Android 5.0, or "Jelly Bean."
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Today in international tech news: Foxconn, the company that manufactures iPods, iPads and other gear, is rumored to be doubling its employees' wages in China. Also, an investigation in Italy could lead to a nationwide block of one of the Web's biggest BitTorrent sites, and the EU is abuzz about the cookie regulations to take effect in the UK this Saturday.
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With some hoopla, the Facebook Camera app hit the iTunes App Store on Thursday. A fairly simple app, it syncs with a user's Facebook account, offers a variety of Instagram-like photo editing tools, and allows for the upload of multiple photos at once. It also geotags photos and collects all of the photos uploaded by friends in one stream that's viewable within the app. The app's editing tools allow for cropping and adding effects.
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"Exciting" hasn't been a word linked to Yahoo for a long time, but if the moribund company has more surprises like Axis up its sleeve, that may change. Axis is a combination iOS app and browser extension that creates seamless browser connections among devices. What's more, it does it with visual elan.
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I've got fond memories of physical keyboards embedded in smartphones. My Palm Treos -- I had three -- were superb at composing email and SMS text responses. I even made notes for a book I was writing on one Treo. I speculate that the hardware keyboard is the principal differentiator keeping BlackBerry's brand alive, along with its super-secure, cheapo messaging system that was used to organize riots in the UK last year, of course.
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A giant but unseen planet may lurk on the outer edge of our solar system, making its presence known only by disrupting the orbits of nearby celestial objects, according to Rodney Gomes, an astronomer at the National Observatory of Brazil. Astronomers have long observed that a group of small, icy bodies in the so-called "scattered disc" region beyond the orbit of Neptune follow strange orbits around the sun.
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Yahoo on Thursday launched Axis, a new mobile browser and plug-in. It lets users begin a search on a desktop and continue on iPhones and iPads, or vice versa. It also offers a faster, smarter search with instant answers and visual previews. Axis is offered both as a standalone mobile browser for iOS devices and as a plug-in for desktop browsers running HTML5.
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Today in international tech news: A large number of European traders are placing bets that Facebook's stock will continue to tumble in the coming months. Also: Google defends itself against accusations from the EU, a longtime Research In Motion executive steps down, a Latvian firm is ordered to pay a fine after duping people into downloading fake apps, and an Apple designer is knighted.
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Apple MacBook Pro rumors, and to a lesser extent iMac, MacBook Air and Mac Pro rumors, have been flying around fast and furious these days, and all it's doing is stoking my fire for a new MacBook Pro. Every Tuesday, which seems to be Apple's favorite day of the week for announcing new products, I anxiously wait to see the Apple Online Store go down and a press release to appear.
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If your device is having difficulty completing tasks like file downloading, it's a dead giveaway that it needs some maintenance. We're used to the idea of spending a bit of time running hard disk defragmentation, spyware scans and other tools on our PCs, but we may not be so au fait with what's needed on the limited-memory phones and PC-substituting tablets we're using daily.
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Motorola Mobility this week unveiled its DreamGallery video navigation software for content providers at a cable industry trade show. DreamGallery lets users search hundreds of channels in seconds, bookmark and store their favorite content in one place, and discover new content tailored to their preferences.
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After last weekend's delayed launch, the Falcon 9 rocket built by SpaceX blasted off Tuesday, carrying the unmanned Dragon capsule into low-Earth orbit.While the launch itself could have been considered breathtaking, there will be more "hold your breath" moments ahead. The next one will come on Thursday when the craft is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station.
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Enterprises are grappling with the growing trend of employees bringing their own devices for use at work and the security and other issues that gives rise to. However, IBM has implemented a simple solution: Prevent the use of certain apps on employees' mobile devices in the workplace. The company disables Siri, the voice-activated personal assistant, on employees' iPhones.
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Today in international tech news: India is developing technology to identify its estimated 300 million citizens who don't have valid forms of identification. Also, hackers in Germany seize a file-sharing site, Google critiques the UK's plan for an opt-in feature to access adult content, and British telecommincations giant Vodafone slashes billions from its estimated value amid eurozone concerns.
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The educational e-book market has grown fiercer in the last few years, raising the question of where the end game will leave educational institutions in their attempts to reduce student churn, increase productivity and radically reduce costs. As the battling e-textbook giants try to cut exclusive deals and limit competitors' supplies of e-content, educators are wondering if their choices of learning material will be choked as a result.
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Whether you are writing code or creating editorial content, a noisy computing environment often can silence your productivity. The Pyroom Text Editor gives you a quiet environment where computing noise cannot distract you from your creativity. Computing noise -- that is, computing distractions from the task at hand -- comes from all the media outlets your computer provides.
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Alcatel-Lucent on Tuesday unveiled its 7950 Extensible Routing System core routing platform in a bid to take on rivals Cisco and Juniper Networks, the current leaders in the $4 billion market. The company's seeking to leverage the increasing demand placed on carrier networks by the growing move toward cloud computing and the explosion in online video.
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Verizon Wireless on Tuesday introduced Viewdini, a mobile video aggregation portal. It will run on the company's 4G LTE network and let users search and access videos from a variety of content providers. Partners include Comcast Xfinity, Hulu Plus, mSpot and Netflix. Others, including Verizon FiOS, will be added soon. Viewdini is an Android app that can be downloaded for free from the Google Play store.
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Leap Motion released its new Leap motion control system for pre-order on Monday, with shipment promised in early 2013. The $69.99 Leap is 200 times more sensitive than any similar existing technology and allows for a variety of natural and intuitive 3D motion controls. Leap Motion is shipping out developer kits as well, and the technology could soon be incorporated in a variety of gaming, graphic design, robotics and other software and computing systems.
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Today in international tech news: In Germany, Microsoft's StreetSide is running into similar problems that Google's StreetView service faced. Elsewhere, the Associated Press takes a long look at the case of Cuba's disappearing high-speed Internet cable, a Japanese chipmaker plans to cut 6,000 jobs, and Spotify launches in Australia.
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Features that Apple has added to OS X over the years, like Mission Control and Spaces, have given users more options for laying out their work areas. Each time another edition of OS X comes out with new interface abilities, the desktop feels more manageable, less constricted. However, there are still a few window management tricks and functions that OS X can't do on its own.
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China's antitrust authorities have approved Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility, on the condition that the Android operating system remain open source and its code be made freely available to original equipment manufacturers. Android devices had nearly 74 percent of the Chinese market in Q4, 2011, and that means Android is in a dominant position, China's Commerce Department said.
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Information security has changed a lot over the years. Way back in the dinosaur days, life was simple. Companies set up a firewall at the border and life was good. Bad guys stayed on one side of the fancy flashing box, and our personnel lived in the pristine, attacker-free paradise on the inside. Well, that's how it was supposed to work, at least. Over the years, the model changed.
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Microsoft opened So.cl, its experimental approach to a social network, to all users Monday, aiming to create a place to find and share online articles, videos and digital content, all with the help of its search engine Bing. So.cl doesn't appear to be a direct challenge to established social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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While Google remains the search engine champion, it is also now apparently the top dog with the Web browsers where searches take place. Google's Chrome is now the most popular Web browser, having overtaken Microsoft's Internet Explorer worldwide, according to the latest figures from StatCounter. Chrome took the lead with 32.76 percent of the market compared to IE's 31.94 percent.
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