Software & Apps - Page 78

Microsoft is ready to help consumers forget about Windows 8 and 8.1, and is rumored to begin promoting its upcoming Windows 10 operating system starting next January. The company took the wraps off Windows 10 during a relatively low-key event that was hosted in September.

Windows 10 for Business preview was released earlier in the year, as testers continue to provide feedback, Microsoft wanted to wait until later to begin discussing "significant" new features to the successor to Windows 8/8.1.

Even with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) happening in early January, Microsoft will host a dedicated a press event in late January to discuss Windows 10. The company previously said consumer features would be unveiled in "early 2015," as the company wants to move ahead with the latest Windows OS.

Valve has just updated their rules for trade of Steam gifts, said to hinder key reseller businesses looking to on-sell keys in the form of gifts. New game purchases as a gift will be stored in the buyer's inventory for 30 days before it can be sold or traded - meaning that if you're looking to buy a new game and sell it on, or maybe lend a helping hand to a mate, maybe you should forget about it.

Tony Paloma from Valve has just announced this new ruling, stating: "All new games purchased as a gift and placed in the purchaser's inventory will be untradable for 30 days. The gift may still be gifted at any time. The only change is to trading. All new games purchased as a gift and placed in the purchaser's inventory will be untradable for 30 days. The gift may still be gifted at any time. The only change is to trading."

This is a bold move by Valve, basically barring any re-seller websites looking to make a living out of key trading - but on the other hand it's a nice move in the fact that many people get burned year after year, purchasing dodgy keys only to have them revoked without refund. Major websites like G2a or Kinguin have not commented on the change as of yet, but they are expected to be hit hardest by these changes.

Adobe has alerted the public of an urgent update that has just been pushed - designed to patch a major vulnerability that is being exploited by hackers. This isn't the first time that we've seen reports like this issued in 2014, we're happy to see Adobe quickly on the ball to neutralize these threats.

The issue comes through arbitrary code execution due to a but in how a de-referenced pointer to memory is handled and has been rated as a critical issue. Adobe's new update covers Windows, Linux and OS X platforms, claiming that they are now provided with "additional hardening" against the flaw known as CVE-2014-8439 which was uncovered and patched in the past.

Exploit kits are designed to deliver Malware to website visitors through methods of deception or taking advantage of vulnerabilities. Kafeine discovered this Flash flaw in October this year, with this method becoming implemented in two more exploit kits named Astrum and Nuclear. Microsoft users have received an automatic patch update, through security advisory 2755801 and Chrome has applied this update personally. OS X users should update their Flash Player to version 15.0.0.239.

Encryption and security was a big part of the push toward Android 5.0 Lollipop, with the first version of Android that enables Full Disk Encryption (FDE) by default on new devices.

AnandTech has now discovered that this forced security actually kills read/write performance on some devices, testing a Nexus 6 with some benchmark numbers to prove it. The benchmarks, below, are using AndEBench, where FDE has a really bad hit on performance. When FDE is enabled on AnandTech's Nexus 6 smartphone, random read performance drops by 62.9%, while random write speeds slump by 50.5%. That's not the worse of it, where sequential read speeds are hit by a huge 80.7% drop in speeds.

FDE is only enabled by default with devices that ship with Android 5.0 Lollipop, so if you're upgrading to Lollipop, FDE isn't enabled by default, thus you're not affected by these slowdowns. When FDE is enabled, all writes to the flash are encrypted before before being saved, and then decrypted when they're being read and sent to RAM. Worse yet, are those who enable FDE with it requiring a key to decrypt, which is protected by a lockscreen password. This means people who opt out of the passcode on the lockscreen, still experience the performance hit on their Lollipop-powered device, without the benefits of FDE's encryption.

Mozilla and Yahoo have announced a new "strategic five-year partnership that makes Yahoo the default search experience for Firefox in the United States on mobile and desktop", with the companies adding they will explore other potential "future product integrations and distribution opportunities to other markets".

Until now, Google was the default search engine in Firefox, Mozilla's popular web browser, which will be replaced with Yahoo. There was a time when Firefox was the biggest competitor to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but now Google is the competitor with Chrome. Firefox has around 16% of the browser market in the US according to StatCounter.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer took to the company blog, talking about the new partnership: "At Yahoo, we believe deeply in search - it's an area of investment and opportunity for us. It's also a key growth area for us - we've now seen 11 consecutive quarters of growth in our search revenue on an ex-TAC basis. This partnership helps to expand our reach in search and gives us an opportunity to work even more closely with Mozilla to find ways to innovate in search, communications, and digital content. I'm also excited about the long-term framework we developed with Mozilla for future product integrations and expansion into international markets".

It would appear some Google Android 5.0 Lollipop early adopters are having trouble with their update, with Google Nexus 7 tablets running slowly and crashing. Apps built by Adobe Air are being automatically uninstalled and users cannot reinstall the missing apps - Adobe has escalated the problem with Google, trying to find a solution as quickly as possible.

Google has promoted Android 5.0 as a "quantum leap forward" and demand for the mobile OS has accelerated. However, user problems might have other Android supporters rethinking updating their smartphones and tablets until these problems are resolved.

Google Nexus, LG Electronics, NVIDIA and Motorola have rolled out Android Lollipop updates for their mobile devices, but with apps crashing or freezing, it's possible to hear even more user complaints in the near future. If nothing else, Google is likely working quickly to ensure these problems are fixed as more devices are expected to receive the update.

WhatsApp for Android is currently being updated, with the latest version providing end-to-end encryption. Previously, WhatsApp couldn't decrypt user messages, even if they wanted to for legal reasons. Most have said that it is the strongest encryption on any major text service.

The company has teamed up with Open Whisper Systems in order to usher in the secure feature, with Open Whisper responsible for multiple apps, but mostly TextSecure that had WhatsApp noticing them. This forces forward security to keep messages encrypted, even if the key is compromised in the future.

Open Whisper Systems spent around six months preparing TextSecure for WhatsApp, but at the moment it's locked to Android only. There's no word on when the iOS version will be updated, but it should roll out in the future at some point.

After years of waiting, and months of rumors, Netflix has announced that it is launching its content streaming service in Australia, starting in March 2015.

Netflix will also be offering its streaming goodness to New Zealand in March 2015 too, and has teased that it will be offering Australians and New Zealanders HD content, as well as "4K [content] where available". There's not much more to know right now, but you can be sure we'll deliver you more news as it happens - and as an Australian, I'm very excited about this.

Not only is it great that Australians finally have access to Netflix, but it is going to disrupt the very, very controlled media market we have here. The rest of the world has so many options for content, especially in the US, but Australia is so tightly controlled, Netflix is really going to shake things up - let's just hope it doesn't have localized content to the point where it is better for people to VPN their Netflix accounts to the US.

During the NVIDIA's Editors Day 2014 in Monterey Bay, California just a couple of months ago (man, I miss that place) the company showed off its new second-generation Maxwell architecture, and gave birth to the GeForce GTX 900 series. But one of the cooler things shown off during the event, was VXGI, or Voxel Global Illumination.

NVIDIA used VXGI to recreate the infamous photo from the Lunar landing in 1969, attempting to debunk conspiracy theories on whether it happened - and whether the photos were fakes or not. Well, the company has now released that Apollo 11 demo, for anyone with a GeForce GTX 970 or GTX 980 to play around with it.

The Apollo 11 demo is powered with Unreal Engine 4, and takes some serious GPU horsepower to run it.

September 2014 has come and gone, with Google securing more of that coveted mobile OS market share pie. Android continues to lead, according to ComScore's latest data, with 52.1% of the mobile OS market, leaving iOS with 41.7% and Windows Phone with 3.6%.

When it comes to the OEM market share, Apple actually lead the pack with 41.7%, while Android is the leading platform spread across multiple partners in Samsung, LG, Motorola and HTC. Not only that, but ComScore is looking at what users are running on their phones, with Google and Facebook owning most of the top-used applications.

Facebook and its own app leads the pack, with YouTube coming in second, Google Play in third, and Google Play in fourth place. Pandora takes fifth place, Facebook returns for sixth place with Messenger, and then Google makes a return for seventh and eighth place with Maps and Gmail, respectively.

Microsoft Windows 8.1 is finally beginning to pick up market share, increasing from 6.7 percent in September up to 10.9 percent market, according to Net Applications. The company has continued to try to convince users to leave behind older versions of Windows and upgrade to 8/8.1, but has struggled to entice users.

Due to the failure of Windows 8/8.1, Microsoft is fast tracking Windows 10 to be released in 2015 - listening to user feedback - as consumers were unhappy with 8/8.1. Windows 7 currently has 53.05 percent market share, as Vista continued its slide, down to 2.82 percent - and the unsupported Windows XP has dropped 6.69 percent down to 17.18 percent.

It seems many consumers are interested in waiting to see how Windows 10 operates before upgrading - and could be waiting to purchase new PCs and laptops.

Nine Inch Nails singer Trent Reznor is working on a special project for Apple, as he was reportedly the chief creative officer with Beats Music. It's unknown if Reznor is currently working on hardware or software technology, but said he's "designing some products" for Apple - and with Apple's reputation of being secretive - it's unknown if consumers will know what exactly he is currently up to.

Here is what Reznor recently said: "It's related to that. Beats was bought by Apple, and they expressed direct interest in me designing some products with them. I can't go into details, but I feel like I'm in a unique position where I could be of benefit to them. That does mean some compromises in terms of how much brain power goes toward music and creating. This is very creative work that's not directly making music, but it's around music."

It seems most likely that Reznor is contributing to a project related to music delivery technology, but his work will probably debut with iTunes sometime in 2015.

Apple iOS 8 has captured 52 percent of the company's active mobile devices, continually taking market share from iOS 7. From Oct. 13 to Oct. 27, iOS increased from 48 percent up to 52 percent, with some analysts saying software bugs and possible lack of additional features have prevented some users from upgrading.

The required 5GB of free space also likely doesn't help, as Apple hasn't been able to convince owners to clear much-needed space before updating.

Despite the release of iOS 8.0.1 - which caused serious headaches for some iPhone 6 Plus owners - the adoption rate for iOS 8 is still significantly higher than the rival Google Android mobile operating system. Android 4.4 KitKat was publicly launched before November 2013, and has captured just 25 percent after an entire year.

Microsoft has pushed out the latest build of its Windows 10 Technical Preview, with build 9860 being made available to members of the company's Windows Insider Program. As long as their PC is on, or sleeping, the update will be pushed over to down, and installed automatically.

If you want to manually force this, go to PC Settings, Update and Recovery, then Preview builds and then tap on the 'Check now' button. The new update is between 2GB and 2.7GB "depending on CPU architecture and language", with the rebooting process taking a little longer than normal. Once the newest build of Windows 10 is on your machine, you'll notice it has a Windows Phone feature: Action Center.

Microsoft explains this as "This build is focused ONLY on enabling basic notifications - quick actions and cleaner UI will come later. You'll see notifications from the system and apps - from new emails and invites to IMs, Facebook posts and more - all-in-one place, so you don't miss a thing. Click on the new Action Center icon in the notification area of your taskbar to check it out". The company has also made it easier to move apps between monitors, and has also added an animation for switching desktops.

Google has only just unveiled Android 5.0 Lollipop, but one of the bigger surprises it has is Gmail 5.0 for Android. Gmail 5.0 for Android will sport a new look, pulling it alongside the new refreshed look of its Android apps of late, but it will do something that should shake up other companies: supporting Outlook.com and Yahoo accounts.

This sees Google wanting to have Gmail as a one-stop-shop for all things email, baking in support for two of its biggest competitors. In a leaked video, we can see that other mail services that are supported, apart from Outlook.com and Yahoo, will include IMAP and POP3, as most would expect. Some rumors suggest that Google has sprinkled Exchange ActiveSync over Gmail 5.0 for Android, which will stop people from having to switch between email apps, keeping it all within Gmail.

We should expect Gmail 5.0 to roll out when Android 5.0 Lollipop launches in a couple of weeks time.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admits the company dropped the ball with Windows 8, but has listened to complaints and hopes to win over trust with the Windows 10 operating system. The company took both consumer UI and IT components into consideration with Windows 10 development, and Nadella said he currently feels "very good" about progress.

Here is what Nadella recently said: "Let's face it, we got some things wrong in Windows 8. Windows 10 is a very important step for us. It's the first step in a whole new generation of Windows... computing is much more ubiquitous. It will run not just on tablets and PCs but 200+ billion sensors. So we want to make sure that we architect Windows 10 at its core, so it can run across a lot of things."

This is a drastic turnaround from Microsoft's stance on promoting Windows 8, with users unfamiliar with the format - and having different branding and UI for smartphones, tablets, and desktop versions of the OS.

One of the biggest downsides of Samsung smartphones and tablets is TouchWiz, its own UI that is splashed on top of Android. But, according to the latest rumors, the South Korean giant is looking at replacing TouchWiz with Iconic UX.

The news comes from a patent that Samsung filed with the Korean Intellectual Property Office back in March, which was for a conceptual user interface that it called Iconic UX. Screenshots of this purported UI are now surfacing thanks to @evleaks, is-he-retired-or-not leaker. On the surface, Iconic UX doesn't look too different from TouchWiz, but there are a bunch of internal changes that will make using Samsung devices mcuh better.

Iconic UX looks to make using Samsung devices in vertical ways, that we simply don't do now, as well as better widgets, and a new tile-shaped menu. The UI itself looks much cleaner, and should be far more user friendly on bigger screens, something that Samsung is famous for. This is perfect timing for news of Iconic UX, considering Android 5.0/L is just about to be released by Google this week with the Nexus 6 smartphone, and Nexus 9 tablet.

Late last month AMD released their Catalyst 14.9 drivers, but now the Catalyst 14.9.1 drivers are here with a pretty serious issue resolved. AMD has fixed several issues with Crossfire in Catalyst 14.9.1, namely quad GPU rigs running four Radeon GPUs.

Before the new Catalyst 14.9.1 drivers were released, quad Crossfire users would experience BSODs when enabling or disabling Crossfire. With the new drivers, this big problem has gone away. The new update also addressed the "crashes related to driver installation" problem, but the drivers haven't fixed everything - but what driver does?

The full list of issues, resolved problems, bug fixes and more can be found on AMD's website.

As an avid Hangouts user, the news of a new desktop version excites me. Google has announced a new Hangouts Chrome app for Chrome OS, as well as Windows, which brings a slew of improvements and changes.

First and foremost, is now Hangouts looks much like Facebook Messenger with its Chat Heads, meaning you won't need to open up Chrome or Hangouts to see your chat. With the updated Hangouts app, your contacts and chats are now combined into a separate toggle window, which is super easy to get to. Google explained on its blog post: "You'll get all your messages as long as you have the app running, and your chats will sync across Hangouts on all your devices".

Better yet, the new Hangouts app includes voice and video calling, which makes it a one-stop-shop for all things communication with Google. Google added: "We recently announced you can make phone calls to any number in the world (via Hangouts dialer) and now you can do this right from your desktop. If you use Google Voice, the app includes complete Google Voice support, so you can make and receive calls, and get your voicemails and SMS messages directly in Hangouts".

Microsoft today unveiled its Windows 10 operating system, a push into the future to try and help desktop and PC users forget about the Windows 8/8.1 debacle. During an invite-only event in San Francisco, the company showed off Windows 10, which mixes live tiles with the familiar UI of Windows 7, including a Start menu and taskbar. The "Metro" start screen and the regular Start Menu of older versions of Windows have been blended together, to provide a more cohesive user experience.

Starting tomorrow, Microsoft will open up a Windows 10 technical preview for PCs and laptops, with additional device support expected in the near future. The company hopes to make a transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10 much more comfortable than the headaches that followed many users as they tried to embrace the touch-centric Windows 8/8.1. Additional details about the OS will be unveiled in early 2015.

Microsoft chose to skip the Windows 9 name and help usher in the idea that its OS needs to be robust and compatible with a wider variety of different products: