Software & Apps - Page 69

A heap of new features are coming to version 9.3 of iOS. Once it launches, you'll be able to sleep better, read better, exercise better, teach better, and basically just be an all around amazing human being.

One of the key additions is "Night Shift". If you've used f.lux before, you know the drill: warmer colours on your display in the evening. This restores melatonin production in your brain to normal levels, allowing you to sleep easier. That's the gist of it, anyway.

With CarPlay, you'll get personalized categories as well as "Near Me" functionality, allowing you to quickly find restaurants and such close to you with a quick tap.

As it was forewarned last week, Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 are retired as of today; Microsoft will be focusing on Internet Explorer 11 and its Edge browser going forward.

You can still use the old browsers of course, but you'll be vulnerable to viruses and the like, and be nagged by Microsoft to update. Head here to download Internet Explorer 11 or Edge, or update through your browser (older versions may not let you, though).

Microsoft is finally retiring old versions of Internet Explorer (IE) this month. As of January 12, IE 8, 9, and 10 will kick the bucket, ceasing to receive updates or official support, thereby leaving you in the cold and vulnerable to viruses and such, but allowing developers to further focus on newer technology. IE 11 will still be on the menu for the foreseeable future, and then of course there's Edge.

If you are an old fogey determined to not upgrade or just don't even know how (if you're on this website, this probably isn't you, but hey), the company encourages you to do so to get the benefit of "improved security, increased performance, better backward compatibility, and support for the web standards that power today's websites and services." A final update for the aging browsers will nag you to do so, as well.

Windows 10 is now apparently installed on nearly 200 million devices and represents a total of 28.85% of the operating systems reported by Steam's Hardware Survey. That's some astounding growth, nearly being adopted faster than Windows 7 was.

Back in October Microsoft said that Windows 10 had already been installed on 110 million devices world-wide. That figure alone is fantastic, but now Microsoft is reporting, via Winbeta, that in two months Windows 10 has has another 90 million installs.

The holidays and the free-upgrade tactics that they aggressively marketed towards users of Windows 7 and above are likely factors in the huge adoption. But that figure doesn't separate installations and activations on new devices. Granted, those running Windows 8 and 8.1 have been very satisfied with the switch, though those on Windows 7 haven't always seemed to see the switch as an "upgrade" by all metrics.

While Microsoft is planning to progressively release a myriad of new apps for its Windows 10 PC OS, there's still been no word as to if Windows phones will be getting the same treatment, marking yet another hour, day and week that Microsoft OS phones are left high and dry.

This slow and steady 'Universal Windows Platform' app release schedule includes some big-name apps like 1-800-flowers, AccuWeather, American Express, Wall Street Journal and Netflix, with others like Bank of America said to follow suit soon, according to ZDNet.

With so many applications ready to hit consumers, people are starting to ask as to whether this will be a long-term thing, or whether Microsoft apps will fizzle out shortly. Microsoft has begun to open up advertising options for developers in order to make some money of their own, so there's always the possibility that big and small business' alike will take and run with third-party Microsoft app development - we will have to wait and see.

It's been a long time coming, but The Beatles music catalogue is finally arriving on streaming services. As of Christmas Eve (December 24) 12:01 AM local time, you'll be able to listen to the catalogue (including "essential" collections like Past Masters) via Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play, Microsoft Groove, Amazon Prime, Rhapsody, Slacker, and Tidal. Even better: it will be available globally.

The Beatles split in 1970 but have remained an enduring force ever since.

They arrived on iTunes in 2010. Media research firm Midia believes coming to streaming services has taken this long for the band because they didn't want to hurt the sales of reissues and retrospectives, and that they've been waiting for the right time to get the best deal.

Seemingly not too interested in carrying its own project on any longer, messaging app startup company Talko has dropped its plans and headed over to Microsoft, in a buyout announced just recently.

This company purchase by Microsoft is in order to improve Skype and Skype for Business products, programs known to often deliver issues based around hefty battery drainage and poor optimisation for many users. This also marks the death of Talko's own project as we know it, with users being given the opportunity to say good-bye and download past conversations, voice files, text and photos before they are deleted completely.

This isn't the first time Microsoft has bought out a company like this and it's the second purchase in under seven days for this tech giant, here's hoping that the Talko team can work some Skype miracles and give us a stellar program.

The web version of Outlook will be updated in the coming weeks and months with some neat features.

First up is a smarter address book that suggests contacts based on usage. It's familiar behaviour for anyone that's used other clients, except for the part where it asks you if you want to include a given person on a multi-person email, if that's something you normally do. The address book won't be picky about spelling names correctly either, so you'll be able to find Kathryn if you typed Catherine, for example. This functionality will roll out to Office 365 users in mid-January, then to everyone by early March. These features will arrive in early January for First Release users and early March for everyone else. Outlook.com will be available to everyone around then as well.

If you fly much, Outlook will prove a handy tool once this update goes live, automatically adding flight information to your calendar based on your emails, and will send you email reminders three hours before your flight. Expedia, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Airlines and Alaska Airlines will be supported at launch; many more airlines will be supported quickly afterward. In the future, other types of events will support this functionality. All of it can be disabled if you like. The new features will go live for First Release folks in early January and everyone else sometime in March.

Mozilla has just launched A-Frame, an open-source framework that uses HTML5 instead of WebGL. This means A-Frame is compatible across iPhones, Google Cardboard devices, the Oculus Rift DK2, and Android support "coming soon".

A-Frame will also support the HTC Vive, which is coming out in April 2016 with HTC teasing that together with Valve they have made "a very, very big technological breakthrough" with Vive. Back to A-Frame, with Mozilla's MozVR team saying: "Beginners start with easily understood primitives like cubes, videos, models, and skies. Advanced users can use JavaScript to imperatively create dynamic and interactive scenes or dive into its underlying entity-component system, a design pattern popular in the game industry that favors composition over inheritance".

AMD is getting quicker with its driver releases, announcing the new Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.12 drivers, a new set of drivers which fixes the Crossfire issues gamers were experiencing in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. Not only that, but the texture corruption problems in Just Cause 3 have been fixed, as well as the snow flickers in Star Wars Battlefront. You can grab the new AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.12 drivers here.

Here's a full list of what's fixed, and what's new:

Resolved Issues:

Netflix has updated its app on Windows 10 devices, dramatically improving the user experience in the process.

Powered by a "new implementation on the Universal Windows Platform", it features vertical scrolling through categories, an improved details page with optimizations based on the size of your display as well more accessible suggested movies, and support for touch on an integrated display and gestures when using a trackpad.

Currently, the update is only available for desktops, laptops and tablets on Windows 10, but phones will have it soon.

In a recent report posted by Proofprint, a company that has launched Instagram's first spam bot cruncher, Bible applications have topped the list in hidden malicious data, offering the worst ranking of any category in the completed research, posting 3.7 percent (26 out of 5,600) with malicious code located within.

Including some of the most popular Bible applications, this research found out that user data is being sent to 16 different servers across three countries, tracking things such as user location, private contacts and even making calls on behalf of the user. If this list wasn't long enough already, the report further claims of unauthorized text message access and cross-app interaction when a rooted phone is being used. Applications based around the Quran also put users at risk, Proofpoint claims, with the research concluding that ten of the most-downloaded applications are putting users at risk, sending information to 31 servers, reading text messages and sending messages on the user's behalf without authorization.

Addressing these concerns, Proofpoint Vice President of Threat Operations, Kevin Epstein, stated, "When it comes to malicious apps, apparently nothing is sacred. The surprising prevalence of riskware in religious texts' apps provides further evidence that mobile users -- and their employers -- need to be far more security-conscious." Paying homage to the fact that users should be constantly aware of their personal security, Epstein added, "The findings are also a valuable reminder of the importance of a mobile app security strategy for organizations. To protect employees and users from unscrupulous scammers and cybercriminals."

Facebook has just announced Transportation on Messenger, which sees the integration of ride-sharing services like Uber into its gigantic communications app.

Uber is the first partner to sign up to Transportation on Messenger, where you can order a ride within the Messenger app. From there, you'll receive your receipts and status updates as conversations, with Uber testing it out right now in specific parts of the US, but other areas and countries will be included very soon. Both Facebook and Uber will benefit from this, as Facebook gets more users - and as Engadget reports, "and importantly, their payment info - returning to Messenger.

Uber on the other hand, gets its ride-sharing hands into the massive Messenger platform, which has over 1 billion users.

As announced recently, Microsoft has now pushed out a preview version of its new Office 365 Planner to members of the First Release program, designed as a simple project-management tool set for release in the mainstream Office 365 package in the future.

Previously codenamed 'Highlander', this addition to Office 365 has currently been added to the following users: Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E4, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 Education, Office 365 Education E3, Office 365 Education E4, Office 365 Business Essentials and Office 365 Business Premium, as explained by ZDNet. If you haven't received the Planner yet don't stress, Microsoft expects a the rollout of this program to be completed over several weeks.

Designed to meld with Office 365 groups, this Planner will enable companies to streamline some business processes, sitting alongside the additions of SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, also set to be added firstly for Office 365 First Release program subscribers.

Last week Taylor Swift played the Sydney leg of her 1989 World Tour, seeing approximately 76,000 fans flock to the ANZ Stadium to enjoy one of the world's biggest artists in her prime. If you missed out on the action or want to re-live the experience, Taylor Swift has once again entered an Apple Music exclusive deal, offering this content solely to subscribers of this service.

Due to her pulling all content of Spotify, it seems that Taylor Swift and Apple Music have now become best buddies, offering up this new experience on December 21, local time.

While Taylor Swift is certainly one of the biggest artists on the globe right now, her sole streaming rights with Apple Music must be an extremely good deal to keep her around, seeing other services like Spotify and Rdio left in the dust.

Skype 7.16 for Windows launches today, and with it comes two practical new features: a media toolbar and URL previews.

The toolbar is a compact set of buttons next to the message window that let you easily share photos, files, video messages, contacts, and emoticons. Happily, the toolbar will minimize as you type so as not to be intrusive. It can be expanded anytime by clicking the paper clip menu.

Amusingly, the Skype team says "long, ugly links" are now a thing of the past thanks to the addition of URL previews. Familiar to most anyone who's used Facebook Messenger, they simply give you a brief look at what's behind a link, helping you decide if want to click it or not.

Parntered with 'Enterprise Rent-A-Car', Uber is now offering its drivers the chance to hire cars through this new project, allowing its workers to obtain a car for around $1000 per month.

This 'pay-to-work' system is nothing groundbreaking but is certainly the first of its kind for a new industry like Uber, with the first drivers in Denver being shelled out cars for $210 per week before tax and additional fees. This pilot program has been created in order to give drivers access to cars that they may not normally be able to afford, meaning they are now able to work for a new Uber overlord.

While Uber has slated this as a major positive for the working-class, there's a few of fees, catches and issues with this program. Not only is there a $500 refundable deposit to be made payable and a $40 sign-up fee, drivers travelling over 4506km per month have to cough up extra money too. If you run over your 145km-a-day cap, expect to pay $0.25 per mile in additional fees.

If you're not familiar with the Remote Play function on the PS4, it allows you to stream your PS4 games to your PS Vita and Sony's smartphones - a nifty feature.

Sony has confirmed through Twitter that it will be bringing its Remote Play feature to Windows and PC, with the news being confirmed by Sony's President of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida. Yoshida posted to his Twitter page: "Some people asked if we plan to provide Remote Play function to PC, and yes, we are indeed working on an official application for PC/Mac".

This move was likely prompted by the recent news of an unofficial Remote Play app for PC, which was developed by a software modder who charges for the feature. It'll be interesting to see how Sony will set up Remote Play on PC, and whether or not it'll shut down the unofficial version.

Microsoft pulled the Windows 10 November update downloads over the weekend. Asked whether or not this was due to reported technical issues, a company spokesperson told us, "We look into any issues our customers report and appreciate their feedback. We don't have any further information to share today."

Despite then declaring no more manual downloads the new policy, they have now been restored, so if you want to upgrade cleanly or manually as opposed to through Windows Update, you can. Here is the official statement:

"Recently we learned of an issue that could have impacted an extremely small number of people who had already installed Windows 10 and applied the November update. Once these customers installed the November update, a few of their settings preferences may have inadvertently not been retained. For these customers, we will restore their settings over the coming days and we apologize for the inconvenience. We worked to resolve the issue as quickly as possible - it will not impact future installs of the November update, which is available today."

Released alongside a short press release, Electronic Arts has announced its latest app venture in the form of an Apple and Android compatible smartphone game called Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.

This game urges users to "collect iconic characters from every corner of the Star Wars universe, build powerful teams, and craft cunning strategies to battle through memorable locations," being released as a free-to-play game through Google Play and the Apple App Store. With squads available for both light and dark sides of the force, Galaxy of Heroes has been produced by Capital Games. There's also a seemingly strong focus on strategy, with the press release further mentioning that each custom team can be constantly upgraded with new gear and loot won through battles.

As this is a free-to-play game, there must be some way for the companies involved to make a return, but that hasn't been highlighted just yet.