Software & Apps News - Page 153

Quite honestly, I had completely forgotten about Norton. I mean, who still uses their anti-virus software when there are free alternatives such as AVG or Avast? Perhaps this new cloud-based password manager will help bring users back. Identity Safe is the new password manager and is compatible with Windows, iOS, and Android.

A startling statistic says that 70% of web surfers have forgotten a password in the last month. Wow. Norton hopes to gain users to the service by putting an end to it. By doing so, they are going head-to-head with LastPast and others who are already in the market place for this type of software.

Identity Safe can manage and generate new passwords for the user as well as use its pedigree of anti-virus software to warn you of malicious sites. The service will remember your passwords and other login credentials and automatically fill them in when you visit a site you have saved them for. It will additionally act like RoboForm and remember non-login data like addresses, credit card numbers, frequent flyer numbers and more.

Microsoft have confirmed that a near-final "release preview" of Windows 8 is expected to drop in early-June, says Windows unit president Steven Sinofsky, where he made the announcement at at Windows Developer Days event held in Japan earlier this week.

This should mean the release could arrive at the time of Computex, which would be a perfectly timed show off period for the Redmond-based company. All eyes will be on the releases as they hit as Microsoft push Windows in a new direction.

Windows 8 should be quite the all-in for Microsoft, as they're not only trying to keep desktop-based customers happy, but notebooks, newly-arrived Ultrabooks, and then tablets and smartphones. Microsoft want to combat Apple's iPad, but right now have nothing to even compete with. Windows 8 will change all of this.

AMD are planning on dropping support for a bunch of their older GPUs when they release their Catalyst 12.7 drivers, which will be a considerable amount of GPUs no longer supported.

AMD plan to conclude driver updates for pre-Evergreen, and even pre-Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, HD 4000 and HD 5000 series GPUs, starting this summer. The change should go into effect with the Catalyst 12.7 drivers which should pop up sometime in July.

Owners of these older GPUs would then have to use the latest driver made available to them, Catalyst 12.6, to run their older DirectX 10/10.1 GPUs. The culling of these pre-Evergreen GPUs from AMD's Catalyst driver package is a bit strange, but most likely a push for users to upgrade their ageing GPUs.

Apple are today seeding registered members of the Mac Developer Program the latest, third developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion. The new version is Build 12A178q, which is up from the previous 12A154q version.

There are various changes baked in which have yet to be discovered, but the lucky ones with access to the Developer Preview will surely swim through the sea of changes to find out just how Mountain Lion ticks, or roars. Apple has a list of known issues with the latest build:

- On systems with FileVault enabled, canceling the restart to the Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3 Installer may leave your system unable to present a password dialog at boot time. You can repair the problem by holding down command-R to boot to the Recovery OS and then using Disk Utility to unlock and Repair your volume.

Popular social drawing game Draw Something, has been updated. I woke up this morning and on the drive to my day job, pulled over as I was early and checked my e-mail, Facebook, etc. The first thing I noticed is that I had multiple friends talking about an update to Draw Something. Well, it's quite the update indeed.

The new update sports some more social elements that feel perfectly suited to the game, first up when you finish drawing or guessing you can send a comment to your partner. This will be a perfect feature for giving people a little clue to your drawing. Some people will use this to say what the drawing itself is, but people already write the word as the drawing, like my Mom and Sister do to collect coins - cheats.

Before the update, if you wanted to share your drawing you had to screenshot and then upload through Facebook or Twitter, now the sharing is made much easier, where it allows you to upload directly to Facebook or Twitter, and is accompanied by a https://drawso.me URL leading to the Draw Something app download page. Filling out the new features is the ability to pull down on your current games screen to refresh and see if its your turn to draw yet, and let you undo the last line your drew.

Microsoft Evangelist Nuno Silva was involved in a video interview that has been posted by Portugese site Zwame, where it's been suggested that ALL Windows Phone devices, even those from the first-generation will get an upgrade to the next-gen OS.

Outside of this interview, Microsoft have barely whispered about the future of Windows Phone, whether its even in development or not. It's believed that Windows Phone 8/Apollo could break the mould on how Windows Phone 7 behaves. There could be enough code compatibility with the desktop that its apps could run on Windows 8 with minimal porting. Wouldn't that be nice?

Of course, we should expect new features in the next-gen OS that would require next-gen hardware. But the underlying OS should work on lower-end devices, but would most likely include restrictions. Apple does this on their devices with iOS versions, same with Google's Android OS.

Until today, music streaming services in Australia have been quite lacklustre, if existant at all. Yes, you could use a VPN or other methods, but its not the same and most people don't know how to do it, which means the masses are left without anything like Spotify, etc. Until today.

Telstra has announced a deal with subscription music service, MOG, where they will soon offer unlimited, on-demand access to more than 15 million songs, streamed to their smart device (mobile, tablets, etc), computer, or certain Smart TVs. The service will be ad-free, and offer unlimited music on connected devices for less than the price of a CD each month.

On top of the unlimited music, the service offers:

We all know Windows 8 is baking very nicely in Microsoft's ovens right now, and they're just some more information surface now in the form of the editions we should expect. Microsoft are going to release Windows 8 in three editions: Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8 RT.

The differences? Well, the first two edition's are for x86-based systems, both in 32- and 64-bit. Windows 8 will be the OS for most people, as it includes most of the features you need, plus an updated Windows Explorer, Task Manager, better multi-monitor support as well as the ability to switch languages on the fly, which was previously an exclusive feature to the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows.

Next up is Windows 8 Pro, which is designed for tech enthusiasts and business/technical professionals. It includes all of the features of Windows 8 as well as encryption, virtualization, PC management and domain connectivity. Windows Media Center is now considered an economical "media pack" add-on for Windows 8 Pro. Finally, we have Windows 8 RT. This is the newest member of the Windows family, which is something Microsoft have been calling Windows on Arm, or WOA.

Autodesk have been tinkering with their video editing and post-shot visual effects tool, Smoke, and will release it later in the fall. Smoke 2013 brings a bunch of new features, such as a unified interface that mixes the traditional, editorial track-based editing with Autodesk's own interface elements.

A node-based compositing tool, ConnectFX, allows editors to insert advanced effects without having to jump to a separate interface. New specific tools make the jump to the 2013 edition of Smoke, including a Color Warper for pro color adjustment, a Master Keyer for faster chromakey editing for green screens and stereoscopic 3D editing, and a 3D visual effects workflow with real 3D effects for elements like logos and titles.

All media is also put into a central area, called the MediaHub. Hardware requirements have been actually lowered, and not increased for Smoke 2013, where users can also now take advantage of Thunderbolt-based external drives and video peripherals to get the same kind of editing one would receive from the high-end Mac Pro.

If you haven't already heard, Mac-based users have been hit by quite the virus scandal over the last few days in the form of "Flashback". In case you're wondering if you're infected, F-Secure are now offering an AppleScript that you can download, and run.

The tiny bit of software checks your Mac for Flashback, and if it finds it, removes it. Apple reportedly has a tool on its way too, but that's not here yet and F-Secure's is. If you want to check your system and feel a bit more secure, you can grab it here.

I just ran it on my MacBook Pro, and I'm clean. I didn't think I'd be infected, I was pretty confident, but I'm the kind of person who would rather be safe than sorry. Run it even if you don't think you're infected, and pass this news onto any of your Mac-based friends and family. Your enemies, well, I'll leave that devious decision to you.